Science Snapshots: Why We Can't Cure the Common Cold...Yet

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I'm sick AF and when I get sick, it's always a man cold with me.

tenor.com

I didn't slept much last night and my sinuses hate me. So as I lay here in bed with the simple common cold, surely dying, I'm wondering why the hell we haven't figured out how to cure this bullshit yet.

Here's why.

We started working on this in the 1950s, after figuring out it was the result of a group of viruses known as rhinoviruses, which account for about 75% of adult colds.

vsgif.com

So what's the problem? That there's over 160 different kinds, that's what. This makes the creation of a vaccine or drug a difficult problem indeed. You can make a vaccine to immunize people to one strain, but they're still susceptible to the other 159.

But scientists don't let something like "impossible" stop them.

Giphy

Various approaches are being taken. Different teams are:
  • Trying to find a common structure between all rhinoviruses to target
  • Making a "cocktail" vaccine that mixes 80 strains, similar to how the polio vaccine targeted all 3 strains
  • Looking for a cure after infection, rather than a vaccine, using the way the human body fights off infection as inspiration
Still, even if one of these methods proves successful, we're still not all likely to reap the benefits. For example, researchers believe healthy people who normally recover within 3-4 days likely wouldn't have access to the cures. Especially as these folks likely will have recovered from the cold before able to see their doctor. Colds are also caused by human coronavirus (not COVID-19) and adenovirus, to name a couple, which means the proposed cures above would require testing to see if you even had a rhinovirus or something else.

This all sounds fruitless, but the cures would be really important to people with chronic conditions affecting their lungs. In such cases, a rhinovirus cure could save lives.

So, while this is interesting, your Captain is still just going to lie in bed all day, extremely grateful that her boss told her to take sick leave yesterday and she continues to test negative for the 'vid, but pining for the days when she could breathe through her nose.

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