How long does it take for the common cold to pass? My character has been sick for like 5 days already and there’s no indication that they get any better. What the actual hell? I get common cold irl on average every other month and it never lasted more than 4 days, at worst. On day 3 I’m already fully functional with some light annoyance of a cough or stuffed nose.
Just discussed in this thread https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/tips-tricks-and-newb-questions-reborn/.
I’d wager your living conditions are a little more sanitary than in-game are. You probably have fairly ready access to over the counter and/or prescription medicines. You obviously have electricity to light your surroundings and send messages. You might even have heat/air conditioning to keep you comfortable instead of grabbing a makeshift hand axe to chop firewood while sick.
If you get hungry/thirsty while sick, I’d garner you have a fridge with supplies or a smartphone to have something delivered (love ya, Grub Hub!) instead of foraging for dandelions or hunting wild animals while you’re still sniffling and getting the chills.
So why WOULD a cold last longer in the apocalypse than what you experience now, surrounded with proper nutrition, sanitation, medicine and myriad other creature comforts? 
The world may never know.
cute. I do live in a bit more sanitary environment (although, I live in Ukraine, so that’s debatable). I barely ever use any medicine when I have a cold, because I do fine without it. My character also does have light and electricity, not sure how that helps. I don’t have air conditioning and my character was sick during early summer during great weather and she lives in someone’s house, slightly adjusted to post-apoc, so it’s not uncomfortable. I rarely do have any food stocked at home, because I can’t cook for shit (unlike my character, who’s food handling 8 and a sizeable stockpile of decent food). She mostly spent time reading books and sleeping twice a day, while I typically work while sick, even though it’s just coding.
In conclusion, my character eats much better than me, has comparable sanitation (nothing that requires running water is simulated in the game, so that advantage is moot), uses medicine I tend to just ignore and spends time sleeping and taking it easy, while I do that one day out of typical 3. And yet my colds last 3 days and her cold lasted a week and a half.