COVID-19 or just plain cold? Or maybe it’s the flu? These troubling questions are being asked by many people now, feeling unwell. The symptoms of these diseases can indeed be quite difficult to distinguish. However, each has its own characteristics that are worth focusing on.
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So, researchers from the University of Southern California, whose article was published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, suggest paying particular attention to the order in which symptoms appear. COVID-19 usually starts with temperature rise, and only then appears cough… And for the seasonal flu the reverse order is typical – first cough, and only then the temperature. AND cold, that is, acute respiratory viral infection (ARVI), most often begins with sore throat.
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However, individual variations are quite possible – in many patients with COVID-19, the temperature does not rise, and in some patients with flu there is no cough. Therefore, other characteristics can help to understand – the rate of onset of symptoms and their duration.
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COVID-19 usually develops more gradually than influenza, which usually starts very abruptly.
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Although some people show symptoms of COVID-19 as early as two days after infection (the average interval between infection and the onset of symptoms is five days), a person can feel sick for whole two weeks, or even longer. More and more patients complain about “long covid“When the symptoms of the disease persist for months.
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When flu the acute phase of the disease lasts from one to four days. Most people are completely recovers in a few days, and even in severe cases, complete recovery takes less than two weeks.
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SARS, or colloquially, the common cold, like COVID-19, often begins graduallybut, like the flu, it reaches its peak in two or three days… However, some ARVI symptoms may last longer than others: a sore throat – up to eight days, headache – up to nine to ten days, and a runny nose, nasal congestion and cough – more than two weeks.
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