The surge in the number of COVID-19 cases still continues in India with experts suggesting that the peak could be in January last or February. This is the third wave of COVID-19 in India and is led by the Omicron variant. While this variant is highly infectious and dangerous – and has already been declared ‘variant of concern’ by the World Health Organization -, the patients infected with it are reporting mild symptoms. This is helping them to recover relatively fast and very few people are required to be admitted to hospitals. Most of the symptoms of this disease are very similar to symptoms like cold, cough, runny nose, etc. People experience the same symptoms during a common or seasonal cold. However, experts now say that several people who experienced cold and flu earlier better this time because of the COVID-19 vaccination.
Professor Sunit Kumar Singh, Head of the Department of Molecular Biology Unit at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) said that people who were infected with the virus or were vaccinated were prevented from the virus responsible for the symptoms of a cold.
“When we talk about common cough, cold or flu-like symptoms, the influenza flu virus is not the only virus responsible for it,” Dr Sunit was quoted a saying in a media report.
The Omicron variant is spreading faster than the previous variants and people infected with it are showing almost the same symptoms as in the common cold. It must be noted that the common cold is a viral infectious disease that affects our body’s upper respiratory system. It is one of the most common infectious diseases among humans. Most colds are the result of infection from coronaviruses or rhinoviruses and they are different from colds caused when infected with SARS-CoV-2 – which causes COVID-19.