Something I’d really like to know about colds is how fast infectiousness drops off. Most sources describe peak contagion as a few days after symptoms start, and note that you’re still infectious until the last cough—but I can’t find anything about how infectious. After, say, seven days, is the secondary attack rate fifty percent of peak or one percent of peak? If one percent, I’m probably happy to interact with the person normally; if thirty percent, I’m probably not. But I have no idea of the actual number.
(This comes up mostly with my partner; she starts “feeling better” after a cold well before the symptoms are actually gone, whereas I’m almost completely debilitated for the entire length. So when she gets sick, I’m stuck choosing between “maintain a depressing degree of interpersonal paranoia long after she’s able to interact again” and “run a completely unknown risk of losing two weeks of my life to misery.” I hate it.)
Something I’d really like to know about colds is how fast infectiousness drops off. Most sources describe peak contagion as a few days after symptoms start, and note that you’re still infectious until the last cough—but I can’t find anything about how infectious. After, say, seven days, is the secondary attack rate fifty percent of peak or one percent of peak? If one percent, I’m probably happy to interact with the person normally; if thirty percent, I’m probably not. But I have no idea of the actual number.
(This comes up mostly with my partner; she starts “feeling better” after a cold well before the symptoms are actually gone, whereas I’m almost completely debilitated for the entire length. So when she gets sick, I’m stuck choosing between “maintain a depressing degree of interpersonal paranoia long after she’s able to interact again” and “run a completely unknown risk of losing two weeks of my life to misery.” I hate it.)