What are the symptoms of novel coronavirus?

The most unbearable things are fever and headache.

COVID-19 generally has no obvious symptoms. In the early stage of COVID-19's post-infection disease, some patients may have no obvious symptoms. Most other patients mainly show fever, dry cough and fatigue. But in addition, due to individual differences, patients may also have symptoms such as muscle pain, chest tightness, itchy throat, sore throat, stuffy nose, runny nose, diarrhea and abnormal taste. These symptoms lack specificity and can be seen in many diseases, which are not unique to COVID-19. Therefore, it is difficult for patients to identify whether they are infected with COVID-19 by the symptoms themselves. When the above-mentioned symptoms appear and you think that you have had contact with COVID-19 and infected people in the past, you should go to the fever clinic of designated medical institutions as soon as possible to make a clear diagnosis.

What are the typical symptoms in novel coronavirus?

Patients with COVID-19's disease are characterized by fever, dry cough and fatigue. Some patients have symptoms such as nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat, loss or loss of smell and taste, conjunctivitis, muscle pain and diarrhea.

COVID-19 patients infected with Omicron vaccine have no obvious clinical symptoms and mild symptoms. The clinical symptoms of COVID-19's patients are mainly mild to moderate fever, dry throat, sore throat, stuffy nose, runny nose and other symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection.

Mild patients may have low fever, mild fatigue, smell and taste disorders. No pneumonia.

Severe patients often have dyspnea and/or hypoxemia one week after onset, and severe patients can rapidly progress to acute respiratory distress syndrome, septic shock, metabolic acidosis that is difficult to correct, bleeding and coagulation dysfunction and multiple organ failure.

Very few patients can also have manifestations such as central nervous system involvement and ischemic necrosis of limbs.

It is worth noting that severe and critically ill patients may have moderate to low fever or even no obvious fever during the course of the disease.

In addition to the above symptoms, there may be a variety of system manifestations:

Changes in smell and taste

The first symptom of some patients is the loss of smell or taste. The World Health Organization (WHO) lists the loss of sense of smell or taste as a new symptom of novel coronavirus infection. Olfactory loss is a potential screening symptom, which helps to find suspected cases or guide isolation and protection. Therefore, it is suggested that patients with sudden anosmia should be regarded as potential infected persons in novel coronavirus.

Symptoms of digestive system

People infected with novel coronavirus can show a variety of symptoms of digestive system, even as the first symptom, which requires medical workers to attach great importance to, identify as early as possible, and carry out corresponding protection and disinfection. COVID-19's digestive system symptoms can be manifested as loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, abnormal liver enzymes and so on. In severe cases, gastrointestinal bleeding may occur. Among them, diarrhea is the most common, and the number, duration and severity of diarrhea are reported differently. Literature reports that diarrhea can be used as an independent risk factor to predict severe patients.

Eye symptoms

COVID-19 patients may have ocular symptoms, mainly conjunctivitis, and the prevalence rate is 0.8%~3 1.6%. The main ocular symptoms of COVID-19 infected people are eye pain, itchy eyes, foreign body sensation, tears and excessive eye secretions, mainly manifested as conjunctival congestion and conjunctival edema. Eye symptoms can appear 0~7 days before fever or respiratory symptoms, or after fever and other symptoms.

Symptoms of nervous system

Although patients with COVID-19's disease are mainly manifested as respiratory symptoms, they may be accompanied by a variety of nervous system symptoms in the course of the disease, and some patients even take nervous system symptoms as the first symptom without typical respiratory symptoms.

Patients with severe COVID-19's disease are more prone to ischemic stroke, and the occurrence of stroke may further lead to poor prognosis of these patients, and some patients may die of stroke. The key to treatment is to prevent mild patients from progressing to severe ones. COVID-19 patients with acute ischemic stroke should be treated by experienced neurologists and infectious diseases doctors, and the treatment should be based on the possible causes. For patients with hypercoagulable state (abnormal increase of D- dimer), some scholars suggested that anticoagulant therapy with low molecular weight heparin should be given under the condition of weighing the risk of intracranial hemorrhage, but whether anticoagulant therapy can reduce the risk of ischemic stroke needs further study.

Some COVID-19's patients may have abnormal epileptiform discharge or slow wave activity in EEG. When COVID-19's patients have unexplained disturbance of consciousness, confusion of consciousness or mental state, disturbance of arousal and abnormal paroxysmal movement (myoclonia), EEG can be used as a part of auxiliary diagnosis to help clarify the cause.

Guillain-Barre syndrome induced by novel coronavirus infection can be manifested as acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, acute motor axis neuropathy and Miller-Fisher syndrome characterized by acute ophthalmoplegia, gait ataxia and weakened tendon reflexes.

Skin manifestation

Skin manifestations of patients with COVID-19's disease mainly occur in trunk and limbs.

Among the early skin manifestations in COVID-19, erythema and papules are the most common manifestations (36.4%), followed by papules (34.7%) and vascular diseases (65,438 05.3%), including petechiae, ecchymosis, purpura, appearance of chilblain and Raynaud's phenomenon, cherry hemangioma, purplish red papules of limbs and urticaria (9.7%). In addition, it can also be manifested as a chicken pox-like rash or even a scaly rash.

The most prominent phenomenon in severe or advanced cases is "coronavirus pneumonia toe", that is, chilblain-like lesions, which often occur in limbs. The damage was initially a red pigment papule, similar to chilblain. After 1 week, the color of the lesion gradually deepened to purple and flattened, which could be relieved by itself, and there was no Raynaud phenomenon in the affected finger (toe).

These lesions may be painful, sometimes itchy and sometimes asymptomatic, and may be the only symptom or late manifestation of novel coronavirus infection.

Other manifestations are oral ulcers, accompanied by gingivitis and blisters.