COVID-19 symptoms

[ch 1: pages 6-7]

The main symptoms of COVID-19 are:

• a high temperature — people feel hot to touch on their chest or back;

• a new, continuous cough — this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or three or more coughing episodes in 24 hours. For those who usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual;

• a loss or change to the sense of smell or taste.

Cough, fatigue, sore throat and muscle pain may be more common in people who test positive for the UK variant of the virus, according to a study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS — Coronavirus (COVID-19) infection survey: characteristics of people testing positive for COVID-19 in England, 27 January 2021).

However, around one in three people have coronavirus without displaying any symptoms. It is unclear to what extent these people transmit the virus, according to a recent paper published in the British Medical Journal.