2535: Common Cold Viruses

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Common Cold Viruses
"It's not an influenza, but the onset has notes of the '09 H1N1 strain." "Ah yes, that was a good year for H1N1."
Title text: "It's not an influenza, but the onset has notes of the '09 H1N1 strain." "Ah yes, that was a good year for H1N1."

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a RHINO-SHAPED RHINOVIRUS. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic is another entry in a series of comics related to the 2020-21 pandemic of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19.

As access to community makerspaces, labs, and knowledge has spread, people have begun doing more things at home that were previous confined to industrial and academic research environments. This was stimulated further during the onset of the pandemic, when communities became focused on helping offset overtaxed national resources.

This strip follows the theme of 915: Connoisseur, making fun of the fact that people often develop strong opinions on virtually identical items or circumstances (in this case, the "common cold"). This is also referenced in 1095: Crazy Straws.

The compares connoisseurs of viruses to the stereotypical fine wine or cheese connoisseurs.

Transcript

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.
[Megan, Cueball, and White Hat are standing in a group. Cueball is talking.]
Cueball: COVID has made me so curious about colds. The next time I get one, I want to know which virus it is specifically.
Cueball: A Rhinovirus? RSV? Mild Influenza? Or something weird like Metapneumovirus?
[Megan, Cueball, and White Hat are talking.]
Megan: How distance are they? Could you learn to tell them apart?
Cueball: See, I wonder!
White Hat: I could get a sequencer from work...
[In this panel, Cueball is sitting on the left, Megan is sitting on the right, and White Hat is standing at the far right. Megan is coughing, there is a tissue box in the middle, and rolled-up tissues lying around on the ground.]
Caption above the panel: Several years later...
Cueball: Ah yes, this one has the rich full-bodied bouquet of RSV, but the heady congestion lends it a lingering Rhinovirus nosefeel.
Megan: *Cough* Quite right!


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Discussion

this brings to mind 915: Connoisseur. 172.70.174.67 20:26, 29 October 2021 (UTC)Bumpf

Yes, but it doesn't quite have the same full-bodied richness as 915. 108.162.215.179 18:28, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

In the explanation,the writer states that in the final panel all three characters appear to be chronically ill. But, I really cannot understand what Randall wants us to think regarding White Hat's presence in the final panel. 172.70.82.3 23:14, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

They are all (including White Hat) holding tissues.
ProphetZarquon (talk) 05:22, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

I swear each type of cold smells different (& air conditioners take on one of these same smells). Isn't there some rather extensive research we could link, into the unique "bouquets" (so to speak) of various illnesses?
ProphetZarquon (talk) 05:22, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't know how whoever wrote the explanation came to the conclusion that the characters are chronically ill in the third panel. I just assumed the three of them came down with a cold together. Aerin (talk) 21:25, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

I opened up the possibilities, with an edit. They've caught something (maybe deliberately, maybe just by the usual method) and have previously experienced other things but not necessarily by design (the titletext's historic '09-strain suggests perhaps, but not definitely) enough to by now be able to wax lyrical with comparative symptography. 172.70.162.13 14:54, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Becton-Dickenson makes a tester for various flus and now COVID. I think it's a mini system for amplification and DNA testing. It could probably do this with the proper test kit. 172.69.48.147 10:52, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Is it worth explaining that "nosefeel" is a parody of the wine-tasting term "mouthfeel"? Yomikoma (talk) 18:27, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Just did! :D PaintspotInfez (talk) 04:43, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Bold of him to assume the common cold will still exist after the pandemic. 172.68.37.39 22:51, 11 November 2021 (UTC)