More contagious, the Omicron variant is gaining ground. Does it also change the symptoms? The data remain preliminary, but are gradually showing the profile of this new strain of the coronavirus.
The first data on the Omicron variant, a new strain of the coronavirus, shows that it is much more contagious. The very rapid circulation of the variant supports this postulate. But what does Covid-19 disease change?
As with contagiousness, the majority of the data available on symptoms, at the end of December 2021, are “preliminary”: they are studies distributed in preprint (that is to say not yet published in a medical journal) or reports. One of them, published on December 24, 2021 by the Scientific Council of the United Kingdom, provides an update on the data of the ZOE application.
This app allows users to fill in their covid infection and other information – such as disease form, duration, etc. It is a valuable data source for covid research, and on a large scale (over 4 million people have already used it).
Starting symptoms closer to the common cold, less loss of taste or smell?
“ There is preliminary evidence of changes in symptoms reported with Omicron. This particularly concerns the loss of taste and smell, which seems to be reported less frequently. », Notes the British scientific council.
This is indeed what can be read in the analysis provided by the ZOE application. ” ZOE data clearly shows that the most important symptoms are no longer a continuous cough, high temperature, or loss of taste or smell. », Notes the application.
For most people who have reported their symptoms, a symptomatic Omicron variant infection ” much more like a cold “:
- Sore throat
- Headache
- Runny nose
Even for cases where the symptoms remain more similar to the previous strains (with, therefore, cough), the loss of taste and smell seems generally very absent although it was an important element of the Delta variant .
Preliminary work from the University of Hong Kong, disseminated online as a preprint (and not in a medical journal), identifies a potential reason for the resemblance between the Omicron variant and the common cold: the strain would infect more, and more quickly, the bronchi; while infecting the lungs less severely than the previous variants. This could explain the differences in symptoms.
Impossible to say if Omicron is a “less dangerous variant”
This makes a covid infection more difficult to distinguish from the common cold in its early stages. In the event of the first symptoms of this type, if you feel like you have a cold, the reflex is to bet on screening. Because make no mistake: just because the first symptoms resemble a cold does not mean that the disease will be as benign as a cold, it remains a coronavirus nonetheless. Also, as since the start of the pandemic, you can contract a mild version of the disease but infect someone who may have more severe symptoms.
A number of data suggest that the disease caused by the Omicron variant is generally less severe – that is, causing milder forms of the disease. Even if these data were to be consolidated, we should not draw the hasty conclusion that the variant is less dangerous: statistically, a more contagious variant, and with rapid dissemination, can cause very significant hospital saturation.
At present, it is not yet clear whether the field data on the differences in symptoms can be explained directly by the Omicron variant, or by the status of those infected: it is not impossible that vaccination either at the origin of the first attenuated symptoms; however, the rate of people vaccinated in the British population is quite high. It is also about better understanding the impact of the variant on different age groups, including children (the United States is experiencing a peak in hospitalizations among the youngest).