Attention, Taiwan: the cold is a viral disease

I keep hearing people saying that if you get a cold you should go see a doctor. I may have a skewed impression from my small sample size, but it's still weird. So everybody, listen up: the cold is a virus, not a bacterium. The doctor can't give you magic get-better drugs for the cold yet.

I'm sure everybody's heard of the wonders of antibiotics. But antibiotics attack bacteria. Viruses are different, and are not affected by antibiotics. There are at least two companies working on antiviral drugs that target the most common kind of cold virus, but that's part of The Future. At the moment, all a doctor can do is listen to you list off symptoms, tell you that you have a cold, and tell you to drink lots of liquids and get plenty of sleep and maybe buy some Benadryl if the symptoms are really getting you down. And wash your hands so you don't give other people the disease.

That's it. Just the same things your mother told you when you were little. That one paragraph is all you really need to know about dealing with the cold. Just remember the symptoms and remember some simple instructions, and you can avoid unnecessary doctor visits. This is easy, Taiwan.