The common cold may help protect against COVID-19, which may partially explain why children, who are especially vulnerable to most viral respiratory infections, generally have milder SARS-CoV-2 infections than adults, National Jewish Health–led researchers write today in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

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The investigators tested 10,493 repeat nasal swabs from 1,156 US children and adults in the Human Epidemiology and Response to SARS-CoV-2 (HEROS) cohort for 21 respiratory pathogens. They also performed RNA sequencing on 147 swabs from 144 participants taken before COVID-19 infection and 391 swabs from 165 participants before and during rhinovirus infection, which frequently causes the common cold.

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