Filenews 19 May 2021
With symptoms of COVID-19 at least initially similar to those of the common cold, flu or allergy, researchers from the University of Southern California made a useful record of the series that usually show symptoms of the new coronavirus.
"The temporal sequence of symptoms can help to understand our case if we are infected with the virus and to correct diagnosis and treatment by the doctor, especially at times when the spread of other respiratory viruses such as influenza coexists," explained Dr Peter Kuhn, PhD, from the research team.
The researchers studied 55,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 from China, according to World Health Organization (WHO) data and 1,100 cases for December 2019 through January 2020 from data from the Chinese Expert Group on Pandemic Management provided by the country's National Health Commission.
COVID-19 cases were compared with over 2,000 officially recorded cases of influenza from North America, Europe and the Southern Hemisphere between 1994 and 1998.
The time sequence of COVID-19 symptoms was:
- fever
- coughing and headache
- nausea and vomiting
- diarrhea.
"We found that patients with seasonal flu experience cough before fever as an early symptom and, conversely, COVID-19 usually starts with fever," said Dr Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, adding "discrimination is even more difficult in the case of the common cold, so back pain, chills and dry cough usually occur simultaneously and abruptly."
The researchers concluded that fever should be the main criterion for controlling possible cases of coronavirus.
COVID-19 causes a number of different symptoms
Dr Glatter, however, referred to the many different cases of COVID-19 he encountered in New York: "although fever is the primary symptom for the majority of patients, the reality is more complex."
According to him, some patients experienced only immunity or anaesthesia, skin lesions such as covid-toes or snowshoes, or a purple discoloration of the skin in response to acute inflammation, but without the presence of fever, cough or other respiratory symptoms.
Other patients had reported malaise, headache and dizziness - symptoms that somehow are specific to stroke - as well as chest pain, absence of fever, cough or other respiratory symptoms again.
Finally, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea after the onset of symptoms associated with respiratory infections such as fever or cough indicate rather COVID-19 disease.
For the above reasons, Dr Glatter pointed out the need for competent doctors to be constantly alert to perceive the slightest symptom that could mean coronavirus disease as symptomatology does not always appear to the letter.
