How do you know if you’re possibly infected with covid-19?

I have a cold. I feel like I have the flu. Do I have a coronavirus? Now that the virus is spreading, it’s not always easy to make the right diagnosis, especially since Covid-19 comes in many forms. One isn’t sick, and the other feels worse than ever.

The first corona patient was known in Wuhan, China, where the virus broke out at the end of December. But there are different reports on symptoms of victims of coronavirus around the globe. Some had no cough, no fever, no runny nose, yet they were quarantined for several weeks.

A Dutch patient with the virus felt flu-like: “Shivery, with a headache and a sore throat”. Afterward, the coughing started, and there was distress. “It’s like there’s a bucket of cement on my chest. As if I can’t quite fill my lungs. Very bad,” he told the newspaper ‘NRC’.

The coronavirus has a whole range of symptoms; almost all of them resemble those of a cold or seasonal flu. This makes it particularly difficult for doctors – who are no longer testing everyone – to recognize the disease, also because not everyone experiences the symptoms to the same extent.

According to a report by the World Health Organization, which charted the clinical profile of a total of 55,924 patients in China, these are the most common symptoms: fever (88%), dry cough (68%), and fatigue (38%). Also less common: shortness of breath (19%) and muscle, throat, and headache (14%). An even smaller minority suffers from diarrhea (4%).