Pseudo-Corona

Last week I was at a conference in Germany (not just as a participant, but as a speaker) and I was concerned that I would not be able to travel on Tuesday. Why? Well, Highflyer announced on  Sunday that his cold "feels just like Coronavirus" (which we both had just before Easter). Who am I to dispute what he is feeling, so I also did a PCR test (plus 4 antigen ones) before I left. After a total of 3 PCR tests and a handful of antigen ones he also believed that he was just suffering from a common (summer) cold. At the conference Topic Number One also came up and a guy I sat opposite from at lunch said that his wife had asymptomatic Covid-19 but now was on sick-leave because of a nasty common cold. That's one thing I hate about these not-so-post pandemic times: the slightest scratchy throat or cough makes everyone panic and think of the worst, passing on their fear to everyone they mention it to. Yes, you DO hear of people who have had Covid 3 times in as many months, but I miss the times when a cold was just an innocent cold that didn't give you a guilt trip and make you think you could have posed a lethal risk to anyone you met two days before.