The Five Omicron Symptoms To Watch For

Somewhat - but not entirely - different from the symptoms of earlier Covid variants: scratchy throat, dry cough, fatigue, muscle aches, night sweats. JL 

Gergana Krasteva reports in Metro:

Omicron symptoms are a scratchy throat, a dry cough, extreme tiredness, mild muscle aches and night sweats.

Symptoms of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant appear to be quite different to what the world already knows.

According to experts in South Africa – where Omicron was first detected – people should look out for five telltale signs.

These slightly differ from the well-known trio of ‘fever, cough and loss of smell’ listed on the NHS website.

Early reports reveal Omicron symptoms are a scratchy throat, a dry cough, extreme tiredness, mild muscle aches and night sweats.

Dr Angelique Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association, was one of the first people to detect the Omicron strain.

She told health officials she was seeing a ‘clinical picture that doesn’t fit Delta’ back in November.

Omicron is currently presenting as a ‘mild disease’.

However, she stressed it is a ‘different picture in hospital admissions especially in unvaccinated people’.

This comes as the UK’s Covid-19 alert level was raised due to the ‘substantial’ threat of rising cases on the NHS.

The five symptoms to watch out for are:

• Fatigue
• Night sweats
• Scratchy throat
• Dry cough
• Mild muscle aches

It is still unclear how many Omicron cases there are in the UK but it is estimated daily infections could be as high as 200,000.

Cases of the new variant are expected to ‘dramatically increase’ in the lead up to Christmas