Symptoms of COVID-19

Symptoms of COVID-19 may include fever, cough and shortness of breath.  In some patients, these symptoms can worsen into pneumonia with chest tightness, chest pain and shortness of breath. Persons, who are elderly, immunocompromised or if have other comorbidities, such as heart and/or liver disease, are at higher risk of developing severe pneumonia and dying from the disease.

At the onset of the illness, symptoms include coughing, fever, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing and myalgia or fatigue. Sore throat has also been reported in some patients early in the clinical course. Less commonly reported symptoms include sputum production, headache, hemoptysis and diarrhea. The fever course among patients with COVID-19 infection is not fully understood as it may be prolonged and intermittent. Please note that a fever, from a medical standpoint, is a temperature of 100.4 or greater.  

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), symptoms of COVID-19 may appear in as few as two days or up to 14 days after exposure as the incubation period is up to fourteen (14) days. For confirmed COVID-19 infections, reported illnesses have ranged from people with little to no symptoms or mild cold symptoms to people being severely sick with most recovering, but some dying.

Posted on March 2, 2020