Yes: RSV reinfects adults throughout life, usually as an ordinary cold. But in adults 65-plus and people with heart, lung, or immune conditions, it is a serious threat that hospitalizes tens of thousands of older Americans yearly.
Immunity after infection is incomplete, which is why it keeps coming back. The risk line: age 65 and up, COPD, asthma, heart failure, or immunocompromise turn a cold-looking illness into a lower-respiratory danger and a known trigger for COPD and heart-failure flare-ups. Prevention has moved: RSV vaccines exist for older adults, with recommendations centered on 75-plus and high-risk 60-to-74-year-olds, so ask your clinician if you qualify. The get-checked pattern in high-risk adults: wheezing, shortness of breath, or a cough that drops into the chest. And the household caution runs in both directions: your mild RSV can be dangerous to the infant or grandparent you pass it to, which is reason enough to stay home while symptomatic.
What to do
Common questions
Can adults get RSV?
Yes, and most adults have had it many times without knowing: RSV reinfects people throughout life because immunity from infection is incomplete. In healthy younger and middle-aged adults, it usually presents as an ordinary cold: runny nose, cough, maybe a low fever, gone in a week or two, and the CDC notes people are typically contagious 3 to 8 days. Where RSV stops being a cold: adults 65 and older (especially 75-plus), people with chronic heart or lung disease (COPD, asthma, heart failure), and the immunocompromised. In those groups RSV is a serious lower-respiratory threat: CDC estimates it hospitalizes tens of thousands of older adults and kills thousands in the US each year, and it is a recognized trigger for COPD and heart-failure flare-ups. The prevention picture changed recently: RSV vaccines now exist for adults 60-plus (with risk-based recommendations that have shifted toward 75-plus and high-risk 60-to-74), plus a monoclonal antibody for infants; ask your clinician whether you qualify. Practical adult guidance: treat a "cold" more seriously if you are in a high-risk group and it brings wheezing, shortness of breath, or a cough that dives into the chest, because early medical attention matters more there. And the household math runs both directions: an adult's mild RSV cold can hospitalize the infant or the grandparent it is passed to, so the same stay-home-while-sick logic applies.