The overlapping symptoms of respiratory viruses with household names – COVID-19, the flu, the common cold, and RSV – can make it challenging to tell them apart. Here's what to know:
Nov. 17, 2022 – The overlapping symptoms of respiratory viruses with household names – COVID-19, the flu, the common cold, and RSV – can make it challenging to tell them apart.
“It is extremely, extremely difficult to differentiate our symptoms between influenza, RSV, and COVID-19 … for parents and physicians for that matter,” says Mobeen Rathore, MD, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Infectious Diseases. In addition, it is well accepted that loss of taste and smell is a unique sign of COVID-19 infection. So that can help you tell COVID-19 from other viral illnesses.coming from a runny nose, and wheezing are some hallmark symptoms of RSV. Wheezing is when a child or adult makes a whistling sound while breathing. Stinchfield says, “You don't see wheezing as much in COVID or influenza as you do with RSV.
Rathore estimates that about 35% of patients coming in with a viral illness test positive for the rhino enterovirus causing the common cold. Testing can also confirm flu or COVID. “The nice thing is that there are some combination rapid tests that we use in clinics that can look at COVID-19, the flu, and RSV all in one,” Stinchfield says. She hopes that similar combination home tests will be available in the future.
In fact, in his area of northeast Florida, RSV rates seem to be going down, flu is going up, and with COVID-19, “there is a concern that it may come back as it did in previous seasons.” At the same time, rates for the common cold are holding steady.
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