Ask Marilyn

Can you get a cold if you're not around other people or anything a sick person may have touched? My friends say you can. Are they correct?

—G. Avila, Seattle, Wash.

Nope. Although cold viruses can survive for a while after a sneeze or a cough, they do not live independently in the air, either indoors or outdoors. So you can take a long, solitary hike in a freezing rain, then return home to alternately heat and chill yourself by jumping in and out of your backyard hot tub while the rain turns to snow, and you can still be sure that you will not catch a cold.