[mgsouth]

Virus sinks: did you see the recent paper published in Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology? [1] It cites lots of other studies showing that nasal epithelial cells create extracellular vesicles (blobs of stuff floating outside the cells) that have receptors for cold viri. Since the vesicles don't have DNA the virus can't replicate. Infected vesicles get swept up the rest of the immune system, so they're decoy Roach Motels for viruses. The study shows that when the nose gets colder fewer vesicles are created, and claims that's why cold and flu cases increase in the winter.

[1] https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(22)01423-3/ful...