The spread of the cold

[badger2005]

I have questions!

1. Currently, is the proportion of the population that has a cold higher than the proportion of the population that has COVID?

I'm guessing the answer is 'yes'... but in that case

2. Is the cold more infectious than COVID?

I had thought that COVID was highly infectious, but now I'm starting to wonder. Colds seem to have spread like wildfire - why hasn't COVID? I know COVID numbers are increasing, but not to the same extent (depending on the answer to 1...).

If in fact COVID is more prevalent in the population right now than the cold, then that would be good to know when assessing how likely your symptoms are to be caused by COVID versus a cold.

Anyway, there seem to be lots of wise people around here, so I'm hoping to learn something!

I meant - in the UK. Just because I'm hearing about lots of cold symptoms here as schools have gone back. But I'd be interested to know globally as well.

Aren't colds multiple different types of virus (over 200 strains) whereas covid 19 is a single strain?

Ah weepingwillow22 - that seems to explain everything! Thank you.

I’m a bit confused as to how colds are spreading so much - surely if we’re taking all these Covid precautions they should also work against the cold?

@FlyingSoloFlyingFree I said exactly the same thing... my kids are full of heavy colds and I feel like I'm getting it too. Such stringent measures in place and yet here we are all. Makes me think if handwashing and sanitiser plus coughing/sneezing into elbows etc isn't working then why will it for covid? I presume the issue at schools will be not all children cough into elbows and sneeze into open air so germs are just there but it doesn't exactly fill me with confidence!

Yes FlyingSoloFlyingFree - I think that's what was confusing me too.
But I guess weepingwillow22's reply means that colds are not spreading all that much. What we see is loads of people having colds at the moment. But if there were loads of colds to start with, then each one would not need to spread very much for us to see people with colds all over the place. Is that the right explanation do you think?

I'm also confused as to where all of these strains of colds were 'hiding' before they started spreading around. I guess I thought that some would have died out if we couldn't spread them during lockdown...

The problem is that kids do not sneeze into a tissue or into an elbow and they don't sanitise their hands every time they blow their nose or cough or anything else. As a teaching assistant I am very aware that if one of them does get Covid then it isn't necessarily going to be avoidable.

Yes, the same question has been on my mind.

Through lockdown we didn’t have a single Illness at the nursery. Didn’t wipe a single runny nose for weeks.

As children returned we have been putting in more and more precautions. Less soft furnishings, sanitising everything several times a day, hand washing etc and yet we have colds spreading about and even a case of chicken pox. So does make me wonder why on Earth we are spending so much time on cleaning and not using certain resources if colds and other viruses are still spreading. It’s obviously not being effective.

I think I can see why they have spread so quickly , children barely mixing with others for months and immune systems being lower as houses are kept cleaner than ever . A nurse told me in August my asthmatic ds7 would get a cold when he went back to school and I should boost him up weeks before with his steroid inhaler. I didn't think 90% of the kids would get a cold though !

My son is at a special school and is sensory seeking and puts everything into his mouth. He always gets a cold at the start of term but has not this year so maybe their hygeine measures are working. They do have the benefit of small class sizes though (only 6 per class).

Apparently we tend to carry various little viruses around with us all the time and they can come out and get us when we're run down. So you don't necessarily need close contact with someone else who's infected.

Even during lockdown there were people working In hospitals etc so would still have been circulating but at lower levels

I think we underestimate just how much our body does for us day to day.

We come across 100's of different viruses daily when going about our 'normal' day to day. We don't know about them because our body manages to fight of 99% of them and this creates a strong immune system.

We haven't had that exposure for the last 6 months and so our immune systems are not as on guard as usual meaning when we do mix and get more 'normality' back we will be more likely to catch something.

A cold is most likely because of the amount of strains there are. This will happen too as we get more offices filled back up with people (if the government gets their way)

I have just had a rotten cold and I know exactly where I got it from. It was the only day I went into the office and went out and got myself a meal deal from Sainsbury's. I forgot to sanitise my hands before eating when I got back.

Thank you - that's all really helpful.

Pumpkinpie you say that 90% of kids have a cold - is that really the figure? I know it definitely feels like that! I don't know if you're joking or if that is really the percentage (amazingly high!).

Glomofnit is saying that the cold viruses were in us all along. So the mixing is not what is doing it - no 'transmission' is needed to explain all the colds. Just - going back to school/work and so being tireder/more run down? This would explain what we see I guess. But I find it really surprising that it isn't about transmission...?

Also a couple of people have said that our immune systems have got a bit rubbish from not having to work during lockdown. But wouldn't this make us more likely to catch COVID as well as colds? What's puzzling me is why colds are spreading like wildfire, while COVID is not. I mean - I know it is spreading, but (unless I'm wrong about this) the proportion of people in the UK now with a cold is a lot higher than the proportion with COVID. Why?

I thought a bit more about an earlier answer, about the different strains of cold, and only one strain of COVID. I've since read that there are different strains of COVID too, so that wouldn't explain it? I'm also not quite sure how there being lots of strains does explain it. E.g. 'is there more rice in this shop, or more pasta?', 'well, there is only got one type of rice here, and lots of types of pasta'. Doesn't follow that there is more rice! (e.g. by volume/number of bags/grains).

OP is may also be something to do with the fact that children are more likely to transmit colds than covid. This seems to be the case in relation to flu.

www.who.int/westernpacific/news/q-a-detail/q-a-similarities-and-differences-covid-19-and-influenza
How are COVID-19 and influenza viruses different?

The speed of transmission is an important point of difference between the two viruses. Influenza has a shorter median incubation period (the time from infection to appearance of symptoms) and a shorter serial interval (the time between successive cases) than COVID-19 virus. The serial interval for COVID-19 virus is estimated to be 5-6 days, while for influenza virus, the serial interval is 3 days. This means that influenza can spread faster than COVID-19.

Further, transmission in the first 3-5 days of illness, or potentially pre-symptomatic transmission –transmission of the virus before the appearance of symptoms – is a major driver of transmission for influenza. In contrast, while we are learning that there are people who can shed COVID-19 virus 24-48 hours prior to symptom onset, at present, this does not appear to be a major driver of transmission.

The reproductive number – the number of secondary infections generated from one infected individual – is understood to be between 2 and 2.5 for COVID-19 virus, higher than for influenza. However, estimates for both COVID-19 and influenza viruses are very context and time-specific, making direct comparisons more difficult.

Children are important drivers of influenza virus transmission in the community. For COVID-19 virus, initial data indicates that children are less affected than adults and that clinical attack rates in the 0-19 age group are low. Further preliminary data from household transmission studies in China suggest that children are infected from adults, rather than vice versa.

There are around 6 strains of covid www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/covid-19-study-6-strains-severity-kings-college-london/, 200+ of colds.

I see your point about the different types of pasta but I would have thought that if there are more different strains circulating you are more likely to catch one as you are less likely to have immunity to it.

WeepingWillow thank you - I understand it all a lot better now, and what you say makes sense.

So I had been asking whether COVID or colds are more infectious, and it turns out that the answer is a bit nuanced: colds are more infectious among children. So that would explain why there are all these colds going around. And we don't need to assume that if colds are spreading in schools, then COVID will similarly spread in schools (at least, not between the children). That all makes sense (and is also reassuring!).

@badger2005 I meant 90% at my sons school , I don't know any adult (with school age children) or child that has not got a cold or just getting rid of one.

@weepingwillow22 I'm not sure that means there are actually 6 different strains of covid, just 6 different clusters of symptoms.

While I guess different strains could explain the difference in presentation / severity, the same virus can affect different people in different ways. They'd need to look at the genetics of the virus across multiple people in each group, which I don't think has been done.

I work with older teens. I've been vigilant about handwashing, sanitising, SD and wearing a mask and visor (protocol at work)

Within a week of schools being back, easily 80% of the class were coughing and sneezing and now we all have colds too. No covid cases as yet and none in the area.

I have also, since the start of summer, been taking so many vitamins that I rattle, eating very well and healthily, and have cut out junk food plus upped my exercise, so I reckon my immune system would have been ok.

No. We're all loaded. I doubt we can avoid corona if we can't avoid this

Unless this cold is a new weaker strain of covid?

Thank you pumpkinpie - I'm finding it hard to distinguish between the statistics and the anecdote so thank you for clarifying that.

I can report a 75% rate of colds in this family of 4!

@badger2005 it's amazing how quick the majority of people have got one ! My sons went within 2 days and mine is still lingering over a week later .

DS's nose was already streaming by his first day back at school. His social contact prior had been out walking/ play area with another family a few days earlier, and seeing his best friend at his house one week earlier. None of them reported colds.

I had shifted his body clock about 10 days earlier as he'd been on a late shift through lockdown.

My dd has a cold and I've kept her off school. I'm unemployed at the mo so that made the decision easy.

As her uniform doesn't have pockets and she's not allowed to take a bag to school, how is she supposed to keep tissues to contain her sneezes?