No evidence cold viruses more aggressive after pandemic

BOSTON - For many people who have gotten a cold in the past few months, the symptoms seem to be much worse than before the pandemic.

There are more than 200 viruses that can cause the common cold and we're definitely seeing a lot of people with cold symptoms that aren't due to COVID these days, Dr. Mallika Marshall said.

And there may be a couple of reasons why people "feel" like their cold symptoms are worse than they were before the pandemic.

First, with all of the masking and social distancing we've been doing over the past three years, you may not have caught a run-of-the-mill cold in quite a while so you may have forgotten how miserable you were with colds in the past.

Plus, your immunity against the common cold has probably waned so your symptoms may feel more intense.

However, right now, there's no evidence that common cold viruses are any more aggressive than they have always been. 

Mallika Marshall, MD

Mallika Marshall, MD is an Emmy-award-winning journalist and physician who has served as the HealthWatch Reporter for CBS Boston/WBZ-TV for over 20 years. A practicing physician Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Dr. Marshall serves on staff at Harvard Medical School and practices at Massachusetts General Hospital at the MGH Chelsea Urgent Care and the MGH Revere Health Center, where she is currently working on the frontlines caring for patients with COVID-19. She is also a host and contributing editor for Harvard Health Publications (HHP), the publishing division of Harvard Medical School.

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