My son came down with a cold 17 days ago. He wore a mask when around the family until his symptoms were done 11 days ago. Yesterday I came down with a cold too. Nobody else in the family has had cold symptoms in this time.

What’s your guess?

I have PCR results confirming that both are Rhinovirus (not surprising, around half of all colds are). Note Rhinovirus incubation period is around 2 days: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3928210/#:~:text=The%20incubation%20period%20varies%20but%20is%20just%20under%20two%20days%20for%20rhinovirus.&text=Symptoms%2C%20which%20generally%20relate%20to,occasionally%20persist%20for%20three%20weeks.&text=They%20include%20sore%20throat%2C%20rhinitis%2C%20rhinorrhea%2C%20cough%20and%20malaise.

With luck, by Monday I’ll have sequence data proving whether it’s the same virus or not.

Well, luck isn’t on my side this weekend 😢. My 2 remaining flongle flow cells were dead. They were a little past their warranty period (4 months old, guaranteed only for 4 weeks). So I won’t be able to answer this until I shell out another $1,000 for 6 more flow cells. 😭

Oh but I found another way to answer this question! Different Rhinoviruses may have a different PCR assay “melting point”. My cold this week are all the curves on the right (89°), and my Son’s cold clearly stands out on the left (86.5°).

So it’s definitely a different virus!