(pathology) A very common, mild viral infection of the nose and throat, whose symptoms include sneezing, sniffling, a running or blocked nose, a sore throat, coughing and a headache.
2020 January 31, Dake Kang, “The shunned: People from virus-hit city tracked, quarantined”, in AP News[1], archived from the original on 2022-02-15[2]:
So he went to the hospital and got checked. Doctors determined it was a common cold, not the new coronavirus, he says, and he returned home. Then a week ago, he says, five officers showed up at his house in Xishui County, a two hour drive from Wuhan. They wore masks and wielded blue, gun-shaped thermometers.