People should look out for different symptoms with the Omicron variant as well as the usual coronavirus signs, new government data has shown.
Omicron cases have been surging in the UK and being able to recognise the symptoms of this highly transmissible variant can help to curb the spread.
Although the “official” list of symptoms has not been expanded, data gathered by the ZOE Covid Symptom study, which has been monitoring the impact of the ascendant variant, shows that there are other signs to look out for, WalesOnline reports.
Using the most recent data from London, where Omicron prevalence is higher than other regions of the UK, ZOE data scientists analysed symptom data from positive cases recorded in the ZOE Covid Study and compared with data from early October when Delta was dominant.
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The analysis revealed that only 50 percent of people experienced the classic three symptoms of fever, cough, or loss of sense of smell or taste, according to The Daily Express.
Among the non-classic symptoms reported was a loss of appetite.
These findings line up with a small batch of data from contributors who reported that their positive PCR results were suspected or confirmed Omicron infections.
"This may come as a surprise to some, as the UK government never updated guidance on COVID symptoms beyond the classic three symptoms. Many months ago, the ZOE Covid Study helped to identify over 20, mostly mild, cold-like symptoms," noted the ZOE scientists.
The top five symptoms reported in the app were:
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Runny Nose
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Headache
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Fatigue
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Sneezing
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Sore Throats
Brain fog was also commonly reported in the data. It's a term to describe a sense of confusion, forgetfulness, and a lack of focus and mental clarity.
Every report in the app builds on this data and the scientists will be conducting more research into the symptom profile of Omicron in the coming weeks.
Even as cases rise, the proportion of hospitalisations and deaths seems to be dropping in most countries where Omicron has been detected.
The same is true of the analysis conducted by the ZOE team of London, although there is often a delay between catching Covid and being hospitalised with complications, so this might change in the coming weeks.
"So far, we’ve had no reports from people who have been hospitalised or suffered severe symptoms with a suspected Omicron infection," noted the ZOE scientists.
In fact, there’s been an eight per cent drop in UK Covid hospitalisations from 987.7 a week on November 15 to 811 a week on December 15.
However, it is still early days and the majority of contributors to the ZOE app are vaccinated, which will likely explain why we have yet to see hospitalisations or severe disease.
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