Common cold When I was a seafarer No one got the cold or the flu on long voyages, it was only when the ship birthed and official people came onboard we all went down with cold/flu. When this current pandemic pans out, we who have been sitting in for weeks will be susceptible to other illnesses that come along our immune system has been weakened and we will catch anything so hard we may die from a public cold. Eskimos died by the hundred when the white man came to safe them for Christianity.