How to know if its cold /flu vs corona??

[guyme]

hi im curios if anyone gets symptoms that suggest common cold sneezing runny nose etc do they need to test for covid???

[specialmom]

Testing.  There is testing for each which revels which it is.  We shouldn't guess at it.  :>)

[AnnieBrooke]

Well, there's testing for Covid-19 and tests for the flu, and also tests for allergies, but is there a test for a cold? If so, do doctors actually order tests for colds? I've never heard of that.

[Paxiled]

In my 67 and a half years on this Earth I have never been tested for the flu, and certainly not for a cold.  It's not that I have never been to a doctor for things that could have been flu, I have.  The fact tests exist doesn't mean you're going to get one.  As for a cold, it's such a minor illness, and we've all had so many of them, or at least we think they've been colds, that I'd be surprised if anyone but a major hypochondriac ever went to a doctor because of a cold.  For most of us who are older, the same is true for the flu.  I don't believe there is a test for a cold, but there I believe you can test for antibodies for having had colds.  I think this because there have been reports on investigations of the immune system and some of these have found some immunity to covid and they surmise this is because of prior colds, which are a closely related corona virus.  But I'm just surmising, it could be they're just guessing and don't actually have a test for cold antibodies.  But my point was, if you only have the sniffles or other very mild symptoms, you aren't going to receive any treatment even if you do have covid.  You will be sent home and told to drink plenty of fluids etc.  Because visiting a facility that does testing exposes you potentially to someone who is there with covid, most people have been avoiding their doctors, which has led to some people suffering from other illnesses they have and some have died because of this.  But obviously a medical facility of any kind is the most likely place to find yourself near someone with covid.  But if you need a doc, you need a doc, and as I've said, my best friend has been treated in a hospital for pancreatitis during covid and if he hadn't he'd be dead.  (Of course, they also removed his gall bladder that was perfectly fine and tried to give him insulin for diabetes which he didn't have and would have killed him, so going to the hospital also almost killed him).  But the epidemiologists mostly say we should all get tested repeatedly so we can know how much covid is around and who has it and therefore who has to be quarantined and contact traced.  Which means even with no symptoms we should all be getting tested all the time, as you can get the virus ten minutes after a negative test, and most of the tests are quite inaccurate.  So my answer is yeah, we should all be getting tested, but we're not going to do it because it means potentially exposing yourself to the virus unless that saliva test works better than it does now and can be done from home, if you're the kind of person who is so cautious you're not going anywhere until the vaccine arrives.  But if you're getting tested because you believe you need to be treated, if you have a very mild case with such mild symptoms you won't in fact receive any treatment, and the treatments being used are only being used in hospitals because they all have some pretty bad potential side effects.  It's a quandary, no?

[AnnieBrooke]

Of all the symptoms they list for Covid-19 (not just the main ones like shortness of breath, inability to smell or taste things, and coughing), surprisingly sneezing and runny nose are not on the lists very often.  I think at this time of year sneezing and runny nose alone are more likely to be allergies.

[Paxiled]

It's really up to you and how readily you can get tested.  Unfortunately, there has been contradictory info on getting tested, but theoretically, all of us should be getting tested regularly so we'd know how much covid is circulating and so contact tracing could be done.  So it's not so much you have symptoms of covid or don't, it's whether or not we should all if we're able and it's safe to do so get tested all the time so we can drive the rate of infection down.  Some places have tried to do this and some have not.

[Paxiled]

And I mean by that, covid has so many different symptoms and affects different people so differently and even affects the same person differently over time that it's not really know yet if certain symptoms are definitely not covid.  We know the ones that signal a possibly bad case of it versus the ones that indicate a mild case, but not the ones that signal no case.

[ppowb]

Most people I know go get tested in that situation. In my case I would get tested if I knew I had been in a high risk situation. Otherwise I would lay low until specific symptoms develop such as fever, weakness, cough and loss of smell and taste.

[Melrem]

Agreed