Doctors who treat Covid describe the ways the illness has gotten milder and shifted over time to mostly affect the upper respiratory tract.
Doctors say they’re finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish Covid from allergies or the common cold, even as hospitalizations tick up.
The illness’ past hallmarks, such as a dry cough or the loss of sense of taste or smell, have become less common. Instead, doctors are observing milder disease, mostly concentrated in the upper respiratory tract.
“It isn’t the same typical symptoms that we were seeing before. It’s a lot of congestion, sometimes sneezing, usually a mild sore throat,” said Dr. Erick Eiting, vice chair of operations for emergency medicine at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York City.
The sore throat usually arrives first, he said, then congestion.
Do the old covid tests still work? Ive had this cold several times this year and always covid negative.
The answer is yes they are still as effective, dont let anyone here convince you otherwise. The base protein has not mutated and that is what is being checked when you do this chromatography style test.
They have a much higher false negative rate now than they used to. Thats probably due to changes in the virus itself and lower viral load as people have higher levels of immunity now. However if you test positive you can still be pretty certain you have covid.
Yes, also recognition that some people may have symptoms and test negative or feel fine and test positive. That’s also why there is no recommendation to test again. If someone pops a positive recommendations say to stay home for 5 days then mask for 5 more. There is no benefit to additional testing because of natural variation in antibody production and function.
Mind the expiration dates.
My pneumologist had me do blood lab tests for "igm and igm"and according to him they are the best options right now, he doesn’t trust the cotton swab one.