COVID patients exhale high levels of virus the first eight days
Many illnesses overlap in their symptoms, including the common cold, flu and Covid, so how can you tell the difference between them?
Deputy Superintendent Pharmacist George Sandhu, at Well Pharmacy, delved into the symptom of fatigue.
“Fatigue can be caused by lots of things,” he said. “And it’s often hard to tell the cause without further investigation.”
Sandhu advised: “If you think you might have Covid, the best thing to do is take a test.
“We’ve still got them for sale in our pharmacies, as do others, and we also sell them online.”
READ MORE: ‘I’m a GP – here’s how to tell if you’ve been struck down by Covid or the flu’
Symptoms of Covid, as pointed out by the NHS include:
- A new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours
- A loss or change to your sense of smell or taste
- Shortness of breath
- Feeling tired or exhausted
- An aching body
- A headache
- A sore throat
- A blocked or runny nose
- Loss of appetite
- Diarrhoea
- Feeling sick or being sick.
A recent study explored the long-term impact on thousands of people in England who had caught Covid.
As part of the REACT study, led by Imperial College London, a significant amount of participants (7.5 per cent) reported long Covid. Long Covid is defined as suffering from symptoms for more than 12 weeks from infection.
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The most commonly reported long Covid symptoms were:
- Mild fatigue
- Difficulty thinking
- Difficulty concentrating
- Joint pains.
Other persistent symptoms included loss or change of sense of smell or taste, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and poor memory.
The findings were published today in the journal Nature Communications. To help protect against the virus, which can be deadly for some, you need to be vaccinated.
Sandhu emphasised: “Far and away the best way to protect yourself from Covid, if you’re eligible of course, is to get a booster jab.”
Eligible groups for the Covid autumn vaccine booster:
- Residents in care homes for older adults
- All adults aged 65 years and over
- People aged six months to 64 years in a clinical risk group
- Frontline health and social care workers
- People aged 12 to 64 years who are living with someone who is immunosuppressed.
If you are eligible for the Covid autumn booster, you can call 199 for free to help book an appointment.
Alternatively, you can book via the NHS website or by downloading the NHS app.
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