- A University of Southern California study found that COVID-19 symptoms often start in a certain order.
- According to the study, flu usually starts with a cough, but the first symptom of COVID-19 is a fever.
- However, doctors who worked with patients with COVID-19 said the symptoms are not as predictable in their experience.
The symptoms of COVID-19, including fever and cough, are similar to the symptoms of many other common illnesses, including the seasonal flu.
Now that the flu season is in full swing, how do you know if a fever is a symptom of the flu or COVID-19? A new study has shed light on the presence of COVID-19 symptoms, which can help people find out if their cough is just a cough or something worse.
The University of Southern California (USC) study found that COVID-19 symptoms often start in a certain order.
This finding may help people with COVID-19 isolate themselves and get treatment more quickly, which could significantly improve patient outcomes.
“This sequence is especially important to know when we have overlapping cycles of illnesses like the flu that coincide with infections with COVID-19,” said Peter Kuhn, PhD, one of the authors of the study and professor of medicine, biomedical engineering and space travel. and space travel. mechanical engineering at USC. “Doctors can determine what steps to take to care for the patient, and they can prevent the patient’s condition from worsening.”
To predict the order of symptoms, researchers analyzed the incidence of symptoms collected by the World Health Organization (WHO) for more than 55,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in China.
They also looked at a data set of nearly 1,100 cases collected between December 2019 and January 2020 by the China Medical Treatment Expert Group for COVID-19 and provided by the National Health Commission of China.
To compare the sequence of COVID-19 symptoms to influenza, the researchers analyzed data from more than 2,000 flu cases in North America, Europe, and the Southern Hemisphere reported to health authorities between 1994 and 1998.
“The order of symptoms matters,” said Joseph Larsen, lead author of the study and USC Dornsife PhD candidate. “Knowing that every disease progresses differently means that doctors are more likely to determine if someone is likely to have COVID-19 or another disease, allowing them to make better treatment decisions.”
According to the study’s findings, this is the order of the symptoms that people with COVID-19 may experience:
- fever
- cough and muscle pain
- nausea or vomiting
- diarrhea
“The study found that seasonal flu patients were more likely to cough before the fever started,” said Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, on Healthline. “In reality, this can be difficult to distinguish, as the flu often starts abruptly with three symptoms, including back pain, chills and a dry cough.”
Glatter said the findings may be helpful “in evaluating multiple patients in a busy clinical environment.”
According to the study, flu usually starts with a cough, but the first symptom of COVID-19 is a fever.
“Our results support the idea that fever should be used to screen for facility access when regions reopen after the spring 2020 outbreak,” the study authors wrote.
Glatter shared his experience treating patients with COVID-19 in New York City.
“In general, fever is usually the most commonly described initial symptom of COVID-19 infection, but the reality of what I see on the front line is more variable,” he said.
“In fact, some patients may only present with loss of taste or smell and feel good differently,” Glatter said. “I have also seen patients with ‘COVID toes’ or chilblains; a livingo type [reddish-blue discoloration] skin reaction in response to acute inflammation, in the absence of fever, cough or other respiratory symptoms. ”
Glatter said other patients also have “malaise, headache, and dizziness,” which in some ways resemble the symptoms of a stroke, but without fever, cough, or any evidence of upper respiratory symptoms.
“I have also seen that patients only had chest pain, with no respiratory symptoms,” he said. “The appearance of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea following the appearance of respiratory symptoms such as fever and cough may also indicate that someone has COVID-19.”
According to Glatter, the bottom line is that health care professionals need to be vigilant and open when evaluating patients who may have symptoms related to the disease. “They don’t always present ‘by the book,’ so you have to cast a broad net when you think about who may or may not have COVID-19,” he said.
“It’s critical to understand the progression of symptoms in COVID-19 infected individuals so that you stop the spread of the disease – basically isolate you and then start effective contact tracking,” Glatter said. “This is quite relevant for a virus that is two to three times more transmissible than flu, leading to outbreaks in clusters.”
He also said understanding the first symptoms not only helps patients to test more quickly, but also to distance themselves physically or socially after the first symptoms start.
“It also underscores the importance of mask wearing and hand hygiene in learning symptoms,” said Glatter.
He also thinks sudden loss of smell and taste and inflammatory skin reactions such as chilblains “may be important clinical clues that can distinguish COVID-19 from seasonal flu.”
According to the
These are three highly controlled variants:
- Variant B.1.1.7. It was first identified in the United Kingdom in the fall. It appears to spread faster (and easier) than other variants. It may be associated with an increased risk of death compared to other variants, but more research is needed to confirm this. It was discovered in the United States in December.
- Variant B.1.351. It was first identified in South Africa in October and later discovered in the United States in December.
- Variant P.1. It was first identified in travelers from Brazil who were tested at a Japanese airport in early January.
Recent research says that the B.1.1.7 variant does not affect the airways and does not lead to more serious lung disease than SARS-CoV-2. The study authors stressed that “complete and clearer data on this topic will be available in the near future.”
Another study shows that while the new coronavirus variants may be more contagious, there is still no evidence that they cause more serious illness.
“Scientists have now studied this and found that these variants spread faster, are more transmissible or more infectious,” Vismita Gupta-Smith, WHO’s public information and advocacy advocate, said in a statement. “However, so far they do not appear to cause more serious illness or a higher death rate or other clinical manifestations.”
She added that the variants behave very much like SARS-CoV-2 and cause a similar disease.
Researchers analyzed data from more than 50,000 patients with COVID-19 and compared their symptoms with previous data from people with the flu to find that the symptoms of COVID-19 occur in a specific order.
This information can help differentiate people with COVID-19 from those with the flu, making it easier for people with COVID-19 to seek help and isolate themselves.
Experts with front-line experience stress that this progression is not always the way the disease manifests itself, but it is still a useful guide for health care providers.
Experts also keep an eye on how new variants affect the body and whether there are changes in symptoms.