A silver lining in the devastating COVID-19 pandemic was that nobody in my family of five caught a single cold for more than a year.
Wearing a mask and hibernating at home protected us from COVID-19 — but we also avoided the soup of germs that can set a throat on fire and turn a nose into a leaky faucet.
That is until late last month, when a nasty virus hit our household like a freight train, sparing no one from a backlog of mucous in the nasal passages.
The whole experience was manageable. Nobody became seriously ill or even feverish, but it reminded us all how much we hate colds and led us to ask many questions. Will we be slammed with a barrage of colds in coming months? Should we get tested for COVID (we did and were negative)?
For some answers to questions about colds, I checked in with some experts.
Q: Has there been an uptick in colds and the flu around the San Francisco Bay Area since the pandemic eased and people started to see friends and family and kids returned to school?
A: “We haven’t seen an increase yet,” said Dr. Darvin Scott Smith, an infectious disease expert who oversees the flu program at Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest health care providers in Northern California. “The way we would detect that would be by testing, and because it’s a low flu season, there’s not any testing going on. We’ve taken the flu tests out of our lab because it’s so low. There’s another metric and that is by queries in the call center. And there are very few calls about colds and flu at this point.”
Q: Do you expect an onslaught of colds this summer as people start to take off their masks, especially after June 15 when California fully reopens?
A: Experts agreed that as the masks come off, we will start to get colds and the flu again.
“There are all sorts of viral infections that are out there waiting to find new hosts,” said Dr. George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology and director of the Prevention and Public Health Group at UCSF. “So don’t be surprised if you see outbreaks of colds and also diarrhea this summer. These viruses are waiting to move. We’ve changed the ecosystem around them by not wearing masks, so we’re allowing them to make mischief.”
While colds and the flu are guaranteed to come back, it’s unknown whether there will be more viruses circulating compared with a typical summer.
“There may be more colds and there will more likely be a perception of more colds just because you are suddenly socializing,” Smith said.
On the upside, the pandemic is easing, and society is reopening in summer when people tend to spend more time outside and viruses are less likely to spread.
“Expect many colds for sure, but summertime is not as heavy a cold season compared to winter,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at UCSF. “But it will be a bummer nevertheless as we have gotten used to not having them around for more than a year.”
Q: If you didn’t get COVID and haven’t had a cold in over a year, will your immune system be out of shape and struggle to fight off the virus, resulting in more intense symptoms and longer sickness?
A: “Fortunately not,” said Chin-Hong. “Not having many colds in the past year, or COVID, will not increase your chances of getting sicker. There are over 200 different viruses that cause the common cold, and immunity is short-lived at best, even if you were ‘lucky’ to get the same virus twice. That is why it seems that we keep on getting colds over and over again. So not having it last year doesn’t make them come back with a vengeance. It’s going to be the same old cold, none for the worse, none for the better, even if we lived in bubbles for the past year.”
“Your immune system doesn’t get out of shape,” echoed Rutherford. “The immune system hangs pretty tough. It’s other parts of your body that get out of shape.”
“That’s not really an issue that your immune system would be less responsive because it hasn’t seen a cold for awhile,” reiterated Smith.
Q: If I have cold symptoms, should I get tested for COVID-19, even if I’m fully vaccinated?
A: “Get tested,” advised Rutherford. “We do have the rare breakthrough case. It may be the index that identifies cases in unvaccinated people.”
“We probably wouldn’t test every single person with allergy-like symptoms or cold symptoms who is fully vaccinated, but if there’s any question, we would still test,” Smith said. “There isn’t a shortage of tests or a reason to discourage testing because there’s plenty available.”
Q: How can I prevent catching colds or the flu?
A: “Unlike COVID, the common cold is easy to catch via hand contact so although we don’t advise cleaning surfaces religiously with COVID, it can help with the common cold,” said Chin-Hong. “But definitely wash your hands or use hand sanitizer (for many, many reasons like preventing bugs that cause diarrhea, not just to prevent the common cold). Other ways in which the common cold is spread is via droplets like COVID, so if you really want to be cold-free, avoid people who look sick (unlike COVID, most spread occurs when people look sick) or if you are feeling daring, ask them to put on a mask if they have symptoms.”
Rutherford echoed the importance of hand-washing, saying, “I think that’s one of the most important things you can do to prevent these background infections that we see.”
“Just because June 15 happens and our governor in California says things are all open and free, we need to still follow all the hygiene practices, which even means washing hands and even continuing to wear a mask when appropriate,” Smith chimed in. “We need to continue our good hygienic practices that provided a safe environment for the last 12 months.”