Early symptoms indicating a COVID-19 infection differ between age groups and also between men and women, new UK research has found. The study, which was published in The Lancet Digital Health journal on Thursday, was carried out by researchers at King’s College in London using data from the self-reported ZOE COVID Symptom Study app.
They studied 19 symptoms, including the most common ones such as persistent cough and loss of smell, as well as abdominal pain and blisters on the legs. The researchers noted that we have used an estimate of the likelihood of a person being infected with SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) based on initial self-reported symptoms to enable timely self-isolation and immediate testing. aimed at.
The performance of the model for predicting COVID-19 positivity was compared in terms of sensitivity, specificity and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) in the test set, he said. According to their findings, in people over the age of 60, the lack of smell was not significant and was not relevant at all in those over the age of 80. But these older age groups were more likely to have diarrhea.
For people aged 40 to 59 years, persistent cough had a higher relevance for detection of COVID-19 and chills or shivering had less relevance than individuals aged 80 years or older. Chest pain, unusual muscle pain, shortness of breath, and loss of smell were the most relevant features for those aged 60 to 70. On gender variation, men were most likely to report shortness of breath, fatigue, chills and fever. Women were more likely to complain of loss of smell, chest pain and persistent cough.
“It is important that people know that early symptoms are widespread and may look different for each member of the family or household,” said Claire Steves, one of the authors from King’s College London. Testing guidance could be updated to enable cases to be selected earlier, especially in the face of new forms that are highly permeable. This may include using widely available lateral flow tests for people with any of these non-core symptoms,” she said.
The study’s interpretation concludes that early detection based on this model is critical to preventing the spread of COVID-19 and efficiently allocating medical resources.
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