Petri OeschgerGetty Images
It used to be that you’d start to get the sniffles or wake up with a fever and body aches and you had a pretty good idea whether it was a run-of-the-mill head cold or a knock-you-out-for-a-week case of the flu. But times are different. The COVID-19 outbreak has made it trickier to know what to ask when you call the doctor about what’s ailing you.
“Three different viruses cause a cold, flu, or COVID-19, but because so many symptoms are the result of your immune system reacting to the virus (your body creates histamines, for example, which leads to congestion), they can seem similar,” says Christienne Alexander, MD, president of the Florida Academy of Family Physicians. Dr. Alexander helped formulate this cheat sheet to the most common symptoms for each of the big three illnesses, and offered some tips on what to do if you feel under the weather.
Common Cold
Symptoms for the cold tend to come on gradually and mostly involve the head and neck, according to Dr. Alexander. Here’s what to look out for:
- Sneezing
- Stuffy nose/runny nose
- Sore throat
- Productive cough (a ‘wet’ or chesty cough that produces mucus or phlegm)
- Watery eyes
The Flu
Unlike the slow onset of a cold, flu symptoms come on suddenly. “You’ll hear someone say they got hit by a truck,” says Dr. Alexander. “It’s almost out of the blue.” She says the first two flu symptoms listed below are the ones that make you feel truly awful.
- Fever/chills
- Body aches/muscle pain
- Fatigue
- Cough
- Shortness of breath
- Sore throat
- Stuffy nose/runny nose
- Headache
COVID-19
Now comes the tricky part: All of the aforementioned flu symptoms are also associated with COVID-19. There are 11 kinds of symptoms correlated with COVID-19 (so far), but Dr. Alexander says most people who are symptomatic will have one of the first three symptoms listed. There is one major outlier that can help differentiate between COVID-19 and the flu or a cold: “The loss of taste and smell is unique to COVID-19,” Dr. Alexander confirms. Another unique characteristic of COVID-19 is that you might not have any symptoms at all. That said, here are the important ones to remember:
- Fever/chills
- Cough
- Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
- Fatigue
- Body aches/muscle pain
- Headaches
- New loss of taste or smell
- Sore throat
- Congestion/runny nose
- Nausea/vomiting
- Diarrhea
What To Do If You’re Sick
In the past, you could continue going about your daily life while waiting to see if your symptoms got worse before deciding what to do. But because COVID-19 is so contagious, that’s not a great idea right now. “Make sure any time you start to experience symptoms, you stay at home until you know what’s going on,” says Dr. Alexander. “Call your doctor and explain how you’re feeling to determine if you need to get tested for COVID-19 or the flu.” In other words, until you know for sure that you don’t have COVID-19, keeping yourself away from others is the right thing to do.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io