Emergency symptoms include difficulty in breathing, persistent chest pain or pressure, sudden confusion, loss of mobility and speech, and bluish face or lips immediate medical attention is advised if these symptoms are present. Among those who develop symptoms, approximately one in five may become more seriously ill and have difficulty in breathing. Some less common symptoms of COVID-19 can be relatively non-specific however the most common symptoms are fever, dry cough, and loss of taste and smell. Symptoms with the Omicron variant are less severe than they are with other variants. The Omicron variant became dominant in the U.S. Multi-year studies are underway to further investigate the potential long-term effects of the disease. Long-term damage to organs has also been observed after the onset of COVID-19.

This is the result of a condition called long COVID, which can be described as a range of persistent symptoms that continue for weeks or months at a time. However, some people continue to experience a range of effects, such as fatigue, for months, even after recovery. Most people recover from the acute phase of the disease. Most symptomatic people experience symptoms within two to seven days after exposure, and almost all will experience at least one symptom within 12 days. The median delay for COVID-19 is four to five days possibly being infectious on 1-4 of those days.

Īs is common with infections, there is a delay between the moment a person first becomes infected and the appearance of the first symptoms. Other infected people will develop symptoms later (called 'pre-symptomatic') or have very mild symptoms and can also spread the virus. These asymptomatic carriers tend not to get tested and can still spread the disease. At least a third of the people who are infected with the virus do not develop noticeable symptoms at any point in time.

Of people who show symptoms, 81% develop only mild to moderate symptoms (up to mild pneumonia), while 14% develop severe symptoms ( dyspnea, hypoxia, or more than 50% lung involvement on imaging) that require hospitalization, and 5% of patients develop critical symptoms ( respiratory failure, septic shock, or multiorgan dysfunction) requiring ICU admission. In people without prior ear, nose, or throat disorders, loss of taste combined with loss of smell is associated with COVID-19 and is reported in as many as 88% of symptomatic cases. Three common clusters of symptoms have been identified: one respiratory symptom cluster with cough, sputum, shortness of breath, and fever a musculoskeletal symptom cluster with muscle and joint pain, headache, and fatigue and a cluster of digestive symptoms with abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea.

People with the COVID-19 infection may have different symptoms, and their symptoms may change over time. Common symptoms include coughing, fever, loss of smell (anosmia) and taste (ageusia), with less common ones including headaches, nasal congestion and runny nose, muscle pain, sore throat, diarrhea, eye irritation, and toes swelling or turning purple, and in moderate to severe cases, breathing difficulties. The symptoms of COVID-19 are variable depending on the type of variant contracted, ranging from mild symptoms to a potentially fatal illness.

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