Omicron alert: Here are some of symptoms you need to watch out for

Srinagar: As the number of Omicron cases cross 100 in India, it’s high time to revisit all the safety protocols and take all the necessary precautions by getting vaccinated. More importantly, it’s essential to know about the symptoms of this new variant and ensure correct treatment.

How do the symptoms of the new Covid variant differ?

While the classic symptoms of COVID-19 such as fever, fatigue, persistent cough and loss of sense of smell and taste, experts believe that the symptoms from the Omicron variant may be different and more ‘unusual’.

Dr Angelique Coetzee, Chairperson of the South African Medical Association, who also happens to be the first person to have found the Omicron variant, said that the disease caused ‘mild’ infections and affected individuals reported no signs of severe symptoms.

However, omicron is believed to have five distinct symptoms of its own, which are: a scratchy throat (as opposed to a sore throat), dry cough, extreme tiredness, mild muscle aches and night sweats, the experts said.

When to get tested?

In a recent YouTube session, Dr Viny Kantroo, Consultant Respiratory, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals emphasised that one should seek testing if they feel they could have been exposed to a large gathering recently.

“At the moment, when there is a new variant, we should not be taking it easy and if you have any kind of cold or flu-like symptoms and body ache, you should consult your doctor and get tested, especially if you have a history of travel or attending a mass gathering. But yes, if you have a frequent history of allergies and are sneezing frequently throughout the day, but do not have any kind of fever or body ache, then you can take a day to see if the symptoms settle down,” she said.

Do symptoms from the new Omicron variant show up sooner than other coronavirus variants?

While research around the same is still ongoing, experts believe that symptoms from Omicron could show up sooner than previous COVID-19 variants.

According to UK’s Health Secretary Sajid Javid, “Recent analysis from the UK Health Security Agency suggests that the window between infection and infectiousness may be shorter for the Omicron variant than the Delta variant.”

Additionally, the possibility of a shorter incubation period of the Omicron variant is said to be one of the reasons behind the variant’s higher transmission rate.