Is it a cold, flu or COVID-19?
Customers will often confuse the symptoms of the flu with general milder symptoms of a cold or the potentially more serious ones of Covid-19.
What are the differences between Covid, the flu, and a cold?
Each of these illnesses are caused by different viruses, but unfortunately, they can have similar symptoms. As different symptoms and different strains of Covid-19 have arisen, it’s become harder to tell the difference between Covid-19, colds and flu.
Coronavirus symptoms vs cold
The Omicron variant (the most dominant strain in the UK) has symptoms that are very similar to a cold. Symptoms such as a headache, a sore throat, a runny nose, muscle aches, coughing or sneezing can be symptoms of the Omicron variant, or a cold.
Coronavirus symptoms vs flu
It’s not easy to tell the difference between Covid-19 and the flu.
The flu has many symptoms in common with Covid, such as a headache, sore throat, fever, cough, tiredness, muscle aches, a runny nose and shortness of breath.
However, it’s unusual for the flu to cause a loss or change to your sense of taste and smell, which can happen with Covid-19.
Coronavirus symptoms range from mild to severe which could lead to hospitalisation or death. If suffering from the key COVID-19 symptoms, please follow the up to date guidelines: