Scientists at King's College London argue that a new set of symptoms is becoming the most characteristic signs of the development of coronavirus. They made this statement based on the study of data from the COVID Symptom Tracker, a mobile application that has already been downloaded by more than 2 million people in the UK. In this application, users enter information and symptoms about any diseases they have. Then the algorithm analyzes the data and determines how many people described the picture of the disease corresponding to the symptoms of the coronavirus.
“ At the beginning of the pandemic, the most common symptom was cough, it was observed in 46 percent of those infected, '' Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London and one of the developers of the ZOE mobile application, which is used for this study, says in an interview with the British publication Mirror. – Today symptom # 1 is headache, followed by sore throat, runny nose and fever. And only the fifth in frequency of spread is cough. At the same time, the classic symptoms are less and less common. For example, we see that such a popular symptom as loss of smell is no longer in the top 10. The picture of the coronavirus is becoming more and more like a common seasonal cold.
British researchers attribute these changes to the spread of a new Indian strain called the “Delta variant”. In addition, in the UK, most older people have already been vaccinated, in whom the coronavirus is more likely to be severe. Now, on the shores of Foggy Albion, mainly young people are sick with COVID-19, and their disease is expressed, as a rule, in a mild form.
However, Russian scientists do not confirm the observation of foreign colleagues about the changing nature of COVID-19.
The symptoms of coronavirus in Russian patients have not changed significantly, Vladimir Zhemchugov, doctor of medical sciences, immunologist, specialist in especially dangerous infections, told RIA Novosti. As before, our leaders are fever, sore throat and cough. According to the scientist, the severity of certain symptoms depends on the characteristics of a particular person, including the general state of health, previous and chronic diseases in history.
Recall that according to the Ministry of Health, which was announced by the head of the Department of Pulmonology at Sechenov University, the chief freelance pulmonologist of the Ministry of Health of Russia Sergey Avdeev in Russia, the frequency of occurrence of symptoms in our patients looks like this:
– an increase in temperature (at least above 37.5 degrees) occurs in 90% of patients.
– weakness and fatigue – 40%
– cough – 40%
– shortness of breath 30%
– headache – 20%
– sore throat – 10%
– stool disorders – 10%
In addition, about half of patients report a violation of taste and smell.
