Doctors who treat Covid describe the ways the illness has gotten milder and shifted over time to mostly affect the upper respiratory tract.
Doctors who treat Covid describe the ways the illness has gotten milder and shifted over time to mostly affect the upper respiratory tract.
Doctors say they're finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish Covid from allergies or the common cold, even as hospitalizations tick up.
The illness' past hallmarks, such as a dry cough or the loss of sense of taste or smell, have become less common. Instead, doctors are observing milder disease, mostly concentrated in the upper respiratory tract.
"It isn’t the same typical symptoms that we were seeing before. It’s a lot of congestion, sometimes sneezing, usually a mild sore throat," said Dr. Erick Eiting, vice chair of operations for emergency medicine at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York City.
The sore throat usually arrives first, he said, then congestion.
I never tested myself because I just thought it was a cold, but that describes my symptoms too. Started with sore throat which wasn't too bad and went away. Then the next day congestion and exhaustion, with just a little bit of sneezing.
The answer is yes they are still as effective, dont let anyone here convince you otherwise. The base protein has not mutated and that is what is being checked when you do this chromatography style test.
They have a much higher false negative rate now than they used to. Thats probably due to changes in the virus itself and lower viral load as people have higher levels of immunity now. However if you test positive you can still be pretty certain you have covid.
Yes, also recognition that some people may have symptoms and test negative or feel fine and test positive. That’s also why there is no recommendation to test again. If someone pops a positive recommendations say to stay home for 5 days then mask for 5 more. There is no benefit to additional testing because of natural variation in antibody production and function.
My pneumologist had me do blood lab tests for "igm and igm"and according to him they are the best options right now, he doesn't trust the cotton swab one.
I simply had the worst sore throat I’ve ever had. No congestion. Then I lost my sense of smell for about 6 months. That was awful. Very grateful it came back.
Is this propaganda? My wife just recovered from covid and it knocked her on her ass. Yes upper respiratory was true, but nausea, fever, fatigue, fainting, body pain, loss of taste all happened
This article is a bit of propaganda though. That doesn't mean it isn't true or anything. But running an article in the news about how much milder the disease is, is still going to have an effect on how people respond to it.
There is a ton of, "COVID is mild now" propaganda which is not supported by the science. More evidence points to increased immunity than a reduction in the lethality of the virus itself.
Omicron is less severe than Delta, but that's really misleading because Delta was the most dangerous variant.
I think what they are trying to say is that harsh reactions are becoming less common. Which is good for everyone. Although it can still affect people a lot, like it affected your wife.
Although it could be propaganda, at this moment I hope it’s the former.
I just wouldn't want people to get the impression that it's nothing, or that it's like a common cold. My wife is really happy to be alive. I was really scared of losing her.
I feel like the comments are dragging you unnecessarily. Maybe one variant presents mildly, but the first line says hospitalizations are increasing. Is hospitalization ‘mild’?
The article contradicts its core premise in the first line.
The core premise is that the "common" symptoms follow a different pattern than they used to. The common symptoms are not the ones that have ever sent anyone to hospital. Hospitalization can still be up and not refute that point.
Just a very small correction- as with all biology, natural selection will drive a virus to replicate more effectively, that’s it. This does NOT mean a virus will automatically become less lethal over time. That’s an older hypothesis that scientists found was not in line with observation.
The newer hypothesis is known as “virulence-transmission trade-off”. The oversimplification of the idea is that if a mutation increases both transmission and virulence, it will also tend to be selected for. COVID is inconsistent with both hypotheses in certain ways though, so really predicting its virulence in the short or long term has proven difficult. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10066022/
Viruses don’t have goals. You are anthropomorphizing them. What viruses do is mutate. If mutations have more fitness, they will spread more effectively. That says nothing about mortality nor morbidity. With this disease it spreads in the early stage, which long before the person who has caught it either dies, recovers, gets long COVID, etc.
The EMA recommeded it recently. I think that has to filter down into member states now. So for the EU next week would probably be too soon. For Switzerland it's not approved yet. But maybe in other non-EU countries somewhere?