Zoe COVID app, which keeps track of COVID symptoms through positive patients using the app, notified that most Omicron patients complain of diarrhea. Even those who have suffered from Delta and Alpha variants had also complained of this symptom.
What happens when you have diarrhea during COVID?
The experience of COVID diarrhea is very similar to how we feel sick from a regular stomach bug.
Zoe COVID app’s data showed, one in five patients gets COVID diarrhea after being infected with Delta or Omicron strains, even if they had two or three doses of vaccination.
Further, 30 percent of patients with the Alpha variant (dominant in late 2020) experienced diarrhea.
How long does it last?
In case you contract COVID, diarrhea can hit you on the first day of your infection and might increase in intensity during the first week of illness.
According to the Zoe health app, COVID diarrhea can last for up to seven days. They also reported that having diarrhea as a COVID symptom was found to be linked to a greater risk of hospitalization, especially among people who also experienced abdominal pain and unusual muscle pain.
How the vaccines have helped?
While vaccines reduced the impact of Omicron, they themselves were impacted: studies have shown that vaccine effectiveness against infection, disease, hospitalization and death waned (though at different rates) over time. However, protection against hospitalization and death have remained high, preventing millions of people from dying, WHO pointed out
