This is a cold!

A variation on the theme of the cold — a cold with an attitude. Is Western civilization going to collapse over a cold? As Newsweek stated a few months earlier:

[A] cold can also have more severe symptoms in the very young and the very old. Older people are more likely to develop a more serious infection compared with adults or older children. And people who smoke — or who are exposed to second-hand smoke — are also more likely to get a cold and have more severe symptoms. Another group of people who are more severely affected by infection with cold-causing viruses are people with an existing lung condition. They can include people with asthma, cystic fibrosis or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Infection with a virus that causes inflammation of the airways can make breathing much harder. People with COPD who catch a mild cold virus are also at risk of developing a bacterial infection.

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