Is it time for the UK to reconsider the main symptoms of Covid-19 that it highlights. Covid has changed and evolved, and so have the main symptoms. Most countries around the world have updated their symptoms list, but the UK has remained with the original list put together at the start of the pandemic.
The NHS has the three main symptoms as:
- a high temperature
- a new continuous cough
- a loss or change of smell or taste
This may have been accurate 2 years ago at the start of the Covid pandemic but times – and the virus – have moved on. Now the main symptoms are very much more like a cold, especially for those who are double vaccinated. The signs to look out for are
- runny nose,
- headache,
- fatigue (mild and severe),
- sneezing and
- sore throat.
This change of symptom’s started to happen with the Delta variety particularly with people who had been double vaccinated. These symptoms are now the main ones for the Omicron variety. But the UK government still push the old symptoms of coughing etc in their publicity. All the signs still state the old three symptoms even though that is now out of date.
Updated Covid information needed in UK
It’s important for us as a church to have the latest information available so we can run a good management plan. We stayed open during the lockdown for our members because we had a good Covid 19 action plan in place. I only found out about the change in symptoms because we were putting a new action plan in place to deal with Omicron. One of the elders provided us with the information – there is no new updated guidance anywhere on UK or Welsh government websites.
It’s a concern for us that while most countries around the world have updated their symptom guidance the UK has not. It would suggest that many people who think or thought they had nothing more than a cold were actually suffering from Omicron but did not go for a test. We’re all still looking out for a cough when we should be looking out for sneezes which is now more likely than a cough.
With the new updated information we are able to tell our members not to come to church if they are suffering from – or have symptoms – of a cold. And lets face it, the best place to be if you have a cold is in bed with a nice hot cup of Lemsip or Beechams – not out spreading it around in church.
Are we coming to the end of the Covid crisis
It would be nice to think we may be coming to the end of the Covid crisis and in a way the signs are showing that the most dangerous period is now over. Covid is changing and becoming less deadly. The initial wave of Covid caused many people to be admitted to hospitals with respiratory distress. Sadly many people died from that. This happened because the virus was able to attach and attack the walls of the lungs.
The latest research seems to show that the changes in Omicron variety means that the virus is no longer able to attach to lung linings and the risk of severe disease is greatly reduced. However on the other side Omicron is much more infectious than Delta and replicates 70 times faster than Delta in the airways, which is probably why a sore throat and runny or blocked nose is now a much more frequent sign of Covid infection than coughing.
Hopefully Covid will continue to evolve into a milder upper-respiratory tract infection leading to just another seasonal winter cold virus. Obviously some people will get complications in the same way that people now still get complications with the common cold. But for the majority of people it will hopefully be no more than a few days in bed feeling a little rough.
As church members we will be taking extra care when visiting or dealing with people that have cold like symptoms. It would be wise for us to wear masks and use hand sanitiser when dealing with people with the ‘winter sniffles’ in order to keep our vulnerable members safe. We will also be suggesting that those with the ‘winter sniffles’ stay away from our main Sunday morning meetings and come to our evening service instead which tend to have younger and less vulnerable members attending.
It may be that, if Covid-19 did escape from the lab in Wuhan – it is now trying to evolve back into a normal and natural coronavirus. If that’s the case then the strains that come from Omicron, we pray, will eventually become pretty harmless as most coronaviruses have been for the last 5 million years.
