MedPage Today investigates whether, according to some reports, there is in fact a difference in Delta symptoms compared to earlier variants.
Though hard data are lacking, ZOE study leader Tim Spector, MB, MSc, MD, of King’s College London, said his app’s data suggests the disease is “acting different now. It’s more like a bad cold in this younger population.”
Headache, followed by sore throat, runny nose, and fever were now the most common reported symptoms.
“All those are not the old classic symptoms,” Dr Spector said, adding that cough dropped to fifth place, and “we don’t even see loss of smell coming into the top 10 anymore. This variant seems to be working slightly differently.”
Dr Spector’s data however is only preliminary and comes from self-reports, and has not even been peer reviewed or published. However, other experts also have noticed a change in reported COVID symptoms.
One of those who has heard reports but is cautious about their interpretation is David Kimberlin, MD, a paediatric infectious diseases expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“I don’t think with what we know right now that we can conclude [Delta] is much different in terms of symptoms,” Dr Kimberlin told MedPage Today. “There have been some reports that it causes more cold-like illness, but so did the original COVID. I think we’ll know more over the next couple of months as we have the opportunity to realise the data.”
Purvi Parikh, MD, of NYU Langone in New York City and a spokesperson for the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, has also heard of COVID being mistaken for allergies, but allergies do not come with high fever, nausea, vomiting, or diarrhoea.
Other symptoms unlikely in allergy include myalgia and chills, said Alan Goldsobel, MD, of Allergy & Asthma Associates of Northern California, who is also a professor at Stanford University. Allergy indicators include the time of year (for those with seasonal allergy), as well as itching, he added.
Distinguishing COVID from common cold symptoms could be harder, Drs Parikh and Goldsobel noted.
“If you aren’t sure, I do recommend COVID testing,” Dr Parikh said.
Source: MedPage Today
