The Most Common Symptoms Are Changing – What Are You Looking For Now?
People who have received one or both vaccinations are reporting different symptoms than the high temperature, cough and loss of taste/smell which originally characterised the virus.
The top 4 symptoms in these groups are now:
Headache
Sore throat
Runny nose
Sneezing
Sneezing is much more likely to be reported as a symptom in people who are vaccinated versus those who are unvaccinated.
Persistent cough is now at number 5 for those who are single jabbed, and at number 8 in those double jabbed, and a high temperature is at number 12 yet still in the top 5 for people who are unvaccinated. These figures are according to the UK-wide Zoe COVID study with around a million people reporting their symptoms daily to build knowledge of how the virus symptoms are changing (https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/new-top-5-covid-symptoms).CORONAVIRUS IN CHILDREN
Early September data showed around 18,000 cases in 0-18s daily, with a huge surge in Scotland where schools returned in mid-August. (https://covid.joinzoe.com/).
Symptoms reported via the Zoe study are variable, sometimes dependent upon age, and children are more likely to be asymptomatic. Top symptoms reported include headache and fever, then traditional flu-like symptoms such as a runny nose, sore throat, coughs etc. Tummy pain and digestive upsets are also more likely.IMPLICATIONS FOR EARLY YEARS SETTINGS
Studies on childhood COVID are less wide-reaching than adult studies, but it seems that children could exhibit either the early traditional symptoms
or have the more common sneezing and headache
symptoms. This makes things tricky in your setting, because we all know these symptoms could belong to any number of autumn and winter viruses as well as Coronavirus!
Our advice would be that in younger preschool children and babies you ask parents to regularly (at least twice weekly) test using LFT devices
(available free from https://www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests) and if they show a positive result, obtain a PCR test and keep children at home if they exhibit any symptoms at all, also taking them for a full PCR test. In older children home LFT tests can be carried out twice weekly as a precaution if they have no symptoms, but they should be taken for a full PCR if symptoms develop.
