Not that this will settle anything.
Anecdotally, I've not gotten even a slight cold while being socially distanced while consistently masked.
Anecdotally, I've not gotten even a slight cold while being socially distanced while consistently masked.
To the parent comment's point though, I haven’t had any colds in the last year where my daughter wasn’t sick first
I've used that successfully in the past to chase colds out of the throat before they get into my nose and lungs.
I know what the models say. But my eyes deceive me.
That's because the cold virus is spread by surfaces, and you likely touched something with it, then scratched your eyes. You can be 80 miles from someone, but if you touch something he touched, you're potentially getting his cold.
Stop. There is no one virus called "the cold virus", and several of the viruses that do cause colds (including, for example, the other four endemic coronaviruses) are not known to spread by fomites.
It's either surface contact or ghosts coughing in the poster's face.
1) There isn't a single virus called "the cold virus"
2) In addition to SARS-CoV-2, there are other viruses that cause cold-like symptoms that are not spread by fomites.
Your comment gave the impression that there's a single "cold virus" for which fomite transmission is the primary vector. That's not so. There are a bunch of viruses (in fact a bunch of families of viruses) bunch that cause cold symptoms, and only a few of them are commonly spread by fomites. None of the five endemic coronaviruses are known to be among these, nor is influenza.
Also, even though the CDC appears to be correct to my eyes in this case, I urge that, after the disastrous departure from anything resembling science in the past year and a half, we stop regarding it as a credible source.
At the end of the day, you made a misrepresentation that, taken at face value, gives a false impression that might lead to bad conclusion with respect to control of these viruses.
There are dozens (some scientists believe hundreds) of viruses that cause cold symptoms. Fomite transmission has been reported in a few, though there is scant evidence at this point. In the vast majority, it has not. In some, like the endemic coronaviruses, it has been examined extensively and not found.
It's certainly worth further study!
But your assertion that suppression of fomite transmission - rather than viral interference - is the explainer of splitrocket not having contracted a cold is not well-founded, but might lead to them (or others) believe that this is a positive side effect of surface sanitization.
Now, has norovirus perhaps been suppressed by all the surface sanitization? Maybe. But not colds. The cold viruses appear to have been suppressed by viral interference (with the curious exception of the adenoviruses).
Attempts to suppress fomite transmission come at a significant cost, namely, increased antimicrobial resistance. It's important not to use this method of suppression in places where it will have no effect, such as attempts at population-level control of viruses that cause cold symptoms.
Anecdotes are not data.
https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-unexpected-case-...
I do have kids though.
A lot of anecdotes there :).
The American medical establishment has a long history of not getting behind nutritional disease prevention. Some of it is for good reason, but I think there is also a systemic bias.
And a former colleague, then childless, called them "petrie dishes."
It's more likely your lifestyle is simply keeping you away from people and places that experience high levels of foot traffic.