As we have been living in a pandemic for more than 18 months now and due to this COVID, the government and health agencies all across the world have scrambled to inform people on how to identify symptoms of the virus.
But as the virus has evolved the most common symptoms of the virus has also changed at the same time. According to the developing data in the recent past it is seen that people infected with the Delta variant which was first identified in India and is the variant behind most of Australia’s current cases, it is highly prevalent around the world who are experiencing symptoms different to those we commonly associated with COVID earlier in the pandemic.
The virus tends to produce different signs and symptoms in different ways as we are all different Humans and with different dynamics comes different immune system.
Hence a sign is something that’s seen, like a rash. A symptom is something that’s felt, like a sore throat.
However, the way a virus causes illness is dependent on two key factors: -viral factors include things like speed of replication, modes of transmission, and so on. As the virus evolves the viral factors also change -host factors are specific to the individual.
Moreover, different factors like age, gender, medications, diet, exercise, health and stress also affects the host factors. Hence when we talk about the signs and symptoms of a virus, we’re referring to what is most common one.
To be sure about this, we have to collect information from individual cases along with that it is important to mark this data is not always easy to collect or analyse to ensure there’s no partiality.
Like if we take an example of old people then they may have different symptoms to younger people, and collecting data from patients in a hospital may be different to patients at a GP clinic.
So, what are the common signs and symptoms of the Delta variant?
The United Kingdom suggest that the most common COVID symptoms may have changed from those we traditionally associated with the virus, and it has been seen after using a self-reporting system through a mobile app. The reports do not show which COVID variant participants are infected with.
But given Delta is predominating in the UK at present, it’s a safe bet the symptoms we see here show the Delta variant. While the common symptoms of COVID are fever and cough, headache and sore throat have traditionally presented for some people, a runny nose was rarely reported in earlier data.
Meanwhile, the most common symptom like loss of smell, now ranks ninth. But due to few reasons we it is possible that we seeing the symptoms evolving in this way. It may be because data were originally coming mainly from patients presenting to hospital who were therefore likely to be sicker.
Younger people are now reporting a greater proportion of COVID cases, and they tend to experience milder symptoms, given that there are higher rates of vaccination coverage in older age groups. It could also be because of the evolution of the virus, and the different characteristics (viral factors) of the Delta variant.
But why exactly symptoms could be changing remains uncertain.
While we still have more to learn about the Delta variant, this emerging data is important because it shows us that what we might think of as just a mild winter cold — a runny nose and a sore throat — could be a case of COVID-19. This data highlights the power of public science. At the same time, we need to remember the results haven’t yet been fully analysed or stratified.
That is, “host factors” such as age, gender, other illnesses, medications and so on haven’t been accounted for, as they would in a rigorous clinical trial. And as is the case with all self-reported data, we have to acknowledge there may be some flaws in the results. Does vaccination affect the symptoms? Although new viral variants can compromise the effectiveness of vaccines, for Delta, the vaccines available in Australia (Pfizer and AstraZeneca) still appear to offer good protection against symptomatic COVID-19 after two doses. Importantly, both vaccines have been shown to offer greater than 90% protection from severe disease requiring hospital treatment.