Cold and allergy symptoms, while similar to those of COVID-19, have some differences that could help determine the cause, a physician said on Sunday as he shared tips on how to differentiate between them.
As a local COVID-19 outbreak spreads, so does anxiety over health as people wonder whether nasal congestion and difficulty breathing are caused by allergies or COVID-19, said pediatrician Ken Tsui (徐嘉賢), who runs a clinic under his name in Kaohsiung.
To help ease concerns, Tsui shared on Facebook on Saturday ways to differentiate between a cold, allergies and COVID-19.
Photo: CNA
However, he said that each person’s symptoms are different and clinical advice should be sought if there are any doubts.
Allergic symptoms generally flare up over a fixed period and do not change, Tsui said.
They also do not involve a fever or loss of taste, which are common symptoms of COVID-19, but chronic sinus allergies and sinusitis could cause a loss of smell, he added.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
While associated with shortness of breath, asthma is often also accompanied by a cough and wheezing, Tsui said, adding that the most important difference between allergies and COVID-19 is the lack of a fever.
On the other hand, symptoms of the common cold tend to change over time, Tsui said.
For example, they start with sneezing, followed by a runny nose the next day and a sore throat the day after that, he said, adding that a fever is also possible.
These are very similar to COVID-19 symptoms, he said.
However, due to its variability, with some cases not displaying any symptoms at all, COVID-19 can be difficult to diagnose, Tsui said.
Abnormal senses of taste and smell are not unique to COVID-19, but their incidence rate is, with 68 to 85 percent of people with COVID-19 reporting a loss of smell and 71 to 88.8 percent a loss of taste, he said.
These symptoms appear early, before the novel coronavirus has entered the lungs, he added.
The only way to be sure of a COVID-19 infection is through testing, Tsui said, but strongly urged against undergoing a test unless recommended by a doctor or listed as a contact of a confirmed case.
Crowding testing centers and hospitals only increases the risk of infection, while putting more work on overtaxed medical personnel, he added.
Tsui urged people to avoid crowded areas until vaccines are made available, adding that the pandemic would end only when a certain percentage of people have been vaccinated.
He advised people with allergies to try to control their symptoms to avoid causing unnecessary worry at this time.
In related news, the Taipei-based I Care Health Institute shared on Facebook three tips on how to properly sanitize a surface with alcohol.
People should let the alcohol sit on the surface for at least 15 seconds to take effect, it said.
Wiping the surface is more effective than spraying alone, it added.
People should use 75 percent alcohol solution, as anything more or less concentrated would be less effective, it said.
The clinic also reminded people that alcohol is a flammable substance and should be kept away from fire at all times.
People can use hand lotion if frequent exposure to alcohol causes dryness, it added.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
RSS