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The United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added six new symptoms of the new coronavirus to its list, suggesting that health experts are learning more about the many ways that doctors see that the virus affects patients
New and increasingly identified symptoms may appear two to 14 days after exposure to the virus. They are: chills, repetitive trembling with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, and new loss of taste and smell. Previously, the CDC had listed only three known symptoms: shortness of breath, cough, and fever.
Mario Ramírez, former acting director of the Barack Obama Administration’s Office of Emerging Threats and Pandemics, told the Washington Post that the frequency of symptoms in new diseases changes over time, even with recurring illnesses like the flu. Recent additions of symptoms, he said, reflect the CDC’s confidence in saying, “We can safely say that these six symptoms accompany covid-19.”
Ramírez, who is also an emergency room physician, said the trust comes in part from the growing number of patients receiving covid-19 treatment in the United States. Local trends in symptoms, along with data from other countries, allow the health agency to present information that captures the correct segment of the population for the test, he added.
“You don’t want to list twenty-something symptoms, especially if half the population has these symptoms,” said the expert. “You are trying to balance the correct targeting of people to assess, so you have to be specific.”
Loss of smell and taste has been known to occur in patients since at least mid-March, when a group of British ear, nose and throat doctors released a statement amid growing concern that this could be a sign that someone is infected, but asymptomatic.
A study of European patients diagnosed with covid-19 found that between 85.6% and 88% of them “reported olfactory and taste disorders, respectively”. In an Iranian study, 76% of people with the disease who reported loss of smell said the symptom had a sudden onset. In many cases, anosmia, as it is called partial or total loss of smell, appeared before other symptoms.
“What happens with the loss of smell is that the taste is lost,” but not the taste, said Jo Shapiro, a professor of otorhinolaryngology at Harvard Medical School. Although not listed on the CDC website, fatigue has also been reported by people who tested positive or said they could have covid-19 when the test was not available.
The newly added symptoms will make it easier for people to know when to request a test, Ramírez said, and can help doctors determine when patients should be tested, or at least say they can have the disease and isolate themselves.
CDC continues to recommend symptom management at home, unless they include difficulty breathing, persistent pain or pressure in the chest, confusion or inability to wake up, or bluish lips or face.
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