Common Cold What is the common cold? A common cold is a contagious viral infection of the upper respiratory tract. The symptom of a common cold are stuffy nose, congestion, runny nose, fever, headache, cough, sore throat or fatigue in the body. A common cold could have one or a few of these symptoms. What are the causes of the common cold? Colds are caused by one of hundreds of common viruses that can easily be transmitted from person to person. In this essay we are going to emphasize on six of the possible causes of a common cold: Virus infection, lack of specific antibody, acute stress, chronic stress, increased human contact and a weaken i