A string of endless colds would be annoying and possibly disruptive to schooling, given that these viruses often cause symptoms like runny noses and cough, similar to some COVID-19 symptoms. That means kids might have to miss school while waiting for COVID-19 test results. What’s more, these kids can pass these infections on to very young or elderly family members.

“The kids are going to go to school, they’ll bring it home to the family and the younger children,” says Ian Barr, a virologist at the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza at the Doherty Institute in Melbourne, Australia. Those family members “are the ones who will … end up with the symptomatic and in some cases, serious infections.”