She'd scanned the little box next to the newspaper article detailing the differences between viruses. Cold is a generic word for infection causes by a couple of hundred rhinoviruses. It's marked by nasal congestion, sore throat, slight fever, body aches. Both diseases cause misery, and misery that can be roughly comparable. The symptoms are so close, says Dr. Kim Kezlarian, a family medicine physician at Ford Hospital in Sterling Heights, that the diseases are not necessarily distinguishable.
Treatment is the same.
Still, the difference between flu and a cold is like the difference between a gopher and a groundhog. A gopher, they say in Indiana, is a ground hog with a press agent. Flu has stature. No, the flu is a disease that commands attention and a certain amount of respect. People still talk about the great flu epidemic of 1918-19, but no one wants to hear about the cold you had last week.