Having become the majority, the Omicron variant is characterized by symptoms quite different from the previous strains. However, the authorities continue to evoke markers of old strains, disturbing the control of the disease according to specialists.
How do you know if you have contracted the Sars-CoV-2 virus? Before the tests, many of you rely primarily on the declared symptoms. But, as on many levels, Omicron has changed the game there too.
Now the majority, the South African variant is characterized by very different symptoms from the previous strains. And everywhere, especially in the United Kingdom, specialists are calling on the authorities to update the official list of symptoms of coronavirus.
Indeed, if you browse the official sites, including in France, the official list of symptoms is as follows:
– fever or feeling feverish (chills, hot-cold);
– cough ;
– headaches, body aches, unusual tiredness;
– a sudden loss of smell (without nasal obstruction), a total disappearance of taste, or diarrhoea;
– in more serious forms: breathing difficulties that can lead to hospitalization in intensive care or even death.
However, since Omicron represents 95.2% of cases in France, the list of symptoms should indeed adapt to this variant with characteristics that are very different from the previous ones.
In the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Maggie Rae, President of the Faculty of Public Health in London, presents a list of these symptoms that Omicron does not cause and which should disappear from official lists.
“Omicron produces milder symptoms and causes less severe disease and that is certainly a good thing,” says the specialist, “but it also means that it is much harder to detect”. “Since we now know that the primary symptoms of the omicron variant include runny nose, headache, fatigue, sneezing and sore throat, it is unfortunate that the government has not updated its official – and now outdated – symptom list, which highlights a high temperature, a continuous cough, or a loss or change in smell or taste“.
And the president of the faculty of public health clarified that “not listing the new symptoms of variants is a threat to the control of the pandemic”.
“As the definition of Covid-19 symptoms is not adapted to Omicron, infected people do not test or isolate themselves and continue to spread this highly infectious virus”, she still defends.
