My wife and I had colds the past week. Based on our cumulative 130 years of experience - clearly just colds. When we told people (asking if they wanted to get together for pre-planned events), a couple of people asked if we had tested for covid. How readily do you test, and how do you respond to such questions?
I don’t test for COVID every time I get a cold; on the rare occasion I have a cold. I have never had COVID, but I assume it would be more severe than a cold.
For me Covid has appeared with a few stronger symptoms such as a nose that runs like a hose and the loss of taste/smell. I know that can vary with each infection.
I stopped testing regularly in 2023ish.
I got Covid a few years ago confirmed by a test. It was very clearly not a cold based on how it presented. I’ve had a few colds since then and they were very clearly a cold so I didn’t test.
It depends. We have some immune-compromised friends and if we are planning to meet them we will test whether we have symptoms or not. Since I work at a university, and since students are a well-known disease vector (folklore even has it that term papers would transmit disease, because profs would tend to get sick during marking season) I test if I get cold symptoms, mostly to make sure I don’t transmit anything to colleagues.
I only test if I have non-typical cold symptoms. Either way, I wouldn’t meet up with friends if I just had a cold, as no one wants that either. But how to answer? Just say ‘no, we haven’t’ and then people can decide for themselves.
I do. I had Covid twice, first in July 2022 and again in September 2024, both times after being fully vaccinated. Both times the symptoms were identical to those of a typical common cold, nothing severe. So I’ll test every time I get cold symptoms, because my parents are 86 and 90 and I visit regularly, and although they are vaccinated too, I don’t want to risk infecting them. Strangely, since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, I’ve had much fewer common colds in average than before.
I have elderly parents too. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cold or Covid. I follow the same protocol and stay away.
Sure, I wouldn’t visit my parents while having a cold, too, but when I had Covid, I waited two extra days after the symptoms stopped before visiting again to be sure not being infectious anymore.
This time and with previous colds, we have told folk that we have colds, allowing them to decide whether they wish to expose themselves. Or if talking on the phone, someone asks how we are, and we comment that we’ve had colds. Quite frequently they ask if we tested for covid. I suppose covid can present as a cold. But personally (and perhaps irresponsibly), we choose to believe that not every respiratory illness is covid, and that we can reasonably distinguish between the 2.
As I said, both times I had Covid, I couldn’t, but only by testing.
Nope! This may sound strange, but I just “knew” I had COVID the two times I’ve had it since 2021.
If I’m at home I do, but if I’m travelling I don’t bother going out to buy a test kit. The last few colds I’ve had have come during vacations. 
I don’t. For those that have said they do, and that can’t tell the difference between Covid and a cold by symptoms, what is the point of testing?
I heard you. And understand that that occurs at times.
The point is that I’m self-quarantining more strictly when I have Covid than with a cold, because it’s still much more dangerous and I don’t want to infect other people, especially not my elderly parents.
I’m w you.
I’ve had COVID once. It was post the early vax, IIRC when the Delta strain was in fashion. My case was mild, but very clearly a different experience from a standard cold. I have colds rarely, maybe 1 per 3 years. With that background. …
If I’m ill with anything I’ll tell people so before meeting with them. Heck I’ll probably not bother leaving home just for my own sake, not anyone else’s. I have never believed in soldiering on through an illness. Stay home, avoid being a spreader, rest, get well soon(er), then soldier forth. And of course if I am out while ill, I’ll sure stay away from elder care facilities. Now that I don’t have any elders in my life that’s a pretty easy lift.
Testing a runny nose for potential COVID? Not unless I already thought it might be COVID for whatever reason. IMO it’d be silly bordering on paranoia to do that in 2025. Back in 2020-21? Sure. A few years from now when US public health has been comprehensively dismantled and random plagues stalk the land? Sure; test for whatever is the current threat.
But here in 2025? No. Why would I?
Thank you. That makes sense and I have no trouble believing Covid is more dangerous than the common cold. Relatedly, is there any current data (2025) on how dangerous current strains of Covid compare to the seasonal flu? Google results suggest the chance of complications are similar for the two, but those seem to link mostly to data from years past (e.g. 2022-23). This study shows more absolute deaths from Covid, but similar case-fatality ratios, suggesting more people are getting Covid, but the percentage of those dying are the same. But again, this is data from 2022-23. Study: COVID Omicron deaths 3 times higher than for flu, but risks for severe cases similar | CIDRAP
Let me explain why I’m still so cautious: just at the beginning of the pandemic, during the first lockdown in Germany, a daughter of an acquainted family of ours visited her parents for Easter with a “can’t be that bad” attitude. A short time later, both parents developed Covid and died soon after. It turned out that their daughter had been in the early stage of an infection, still symptomless, and gave it to her parents. These were the first victims I personally knew, and I can’t imagine the horror and the stinging trauma and guilt the daughter still must feel. So I do everything to avoid something like this happening to me, my family and friends.
No harm in being over cautious. I wasn’t truly to argue otherwise