Corona, cold or flu? Interpret symptoms correctly!

Wave of illness in full swing

Corona, cold or flu? How to correctly interpret the symptoms

Corona, cold or flu? Which symptoms indicate which illness – an overview.

Mila Drumeva, iStockphoto

October 10, 2024 at 5:37 p.m

Signs of illness should be interpreted correctly!

Dirty weather, wet conditions and low temperatures are the perfect basis for an infection. But many of us don’t even know what exactly we have. Corona, a cold or the flu? General practitioner and medical journalist Dr. Christoph Specht explains how you can differentiate between the different symptoms.

Flu: You should pay attention to these signs

First of all, the true flu is an illness caused by the influenza virus.

A flu-like infection is a simple cold. The tricky thing about the flu: “It comes on suddenly, i.e. within one to two hours – and then quite violently,” explains general practitioner Dr. Christopher Specht.

Patients with flu complain of:

• Fever

• severe body pain

• Chills and sweats

• painful cough BUT hardly any runny nose

• Loss of appetite

• severe fatigue

Specht explains: “If you have had the flu more often or have been vaccinated against it, the symptoms can sometimes be weaker. They are then no longer clearly defined, which is a good thing, but it also makes a diagnosis more difficult.”

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Overall, the flu has far more extreme effects than a cold, also known as a flu-like infection.

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This is how you recognize a cold

A cold is a viral illness that causes the following symptoms:

• Runny nose (frequent sneezing, runny nose)

• Cough

• Sore throat or sore throat

• slight fever

• slight pain in the limbs

• fatigue

Reading tip: Do you have a cold or are you already allergic? A detail makes the difference!

In the end, only the doctor can make a 100% distinction, for example using a PCR test.

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Corona: THESE are the symptoms

For four years now, the coronavirus has become an integral part of our everyday lives.

Even though containment measures have largely been abolished, Covid-19 is still rampant. What has always been special is that the symptoms of the Omicron subtype – especially BA.4 and BA.5, but also the current variant XEC – are quite similar to those of a cold. “You can hardly distinguish them from those that occur with a flu-like infection,” says Dr. Woodpecker.

This is because the coronavirus – and thus also the different variants – is developing more and more towards a cold virus. “In this respect, the symptoms are similar. But that’s good! The fact that Corona becomes a cold virus is the best thing that can happen to us,” explains the doctor.

Dr. Christoph Specht explains which symptoms you can use to recognize different infections. Including that of a corona infection.

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The most common symptoms still include the following complaints:

• Exhaustion, tiredness

• Body aches, back pain

• Sore throat

• Runny nose (including sneezing) and cough

• Headache

However, this does not mean that it is only these disease characteristics that occur. Loss of appetite, gastrointestinal complaints, fever and night sweats can also be a sign of corona disease, as can loss of the sense of smell or taste.

Reading tip: More and more swine flu cases! Should we worry? Expert explains

The Eris mutation also brought with it completely new symptoms, such as:

• Inflammation in the throat

• itchy or red eyes

• red and sore fingers or toes

• Swelling or ulcers in the mouth or tongue.

And still important: “Some people have nothing at all.” (yeah)