Senior medical experts said covid symptoms have significantly changed since the pandemic first began in 2020.
A recent article in the BMJ heard from several senior medical professional who said Covid-19 symptoms had "evolved". Due to a number of new variants and changes in levels of vaccination and immunity, experts said they've seen a number of "surprising" changes.
At the start of the pandemic the first commonly reported symptoms were the recognisable loss of smell and taste, followed by shortness of breath and then vascular injuries. Dr David Strain, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School said "that became the standard that we expected".
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Dr Betty Raman, a senior clinical research fellow in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford, added: "Quite a significant proportion were admitted to hospital with the earlier variants" which were "quite severe cardiorespiratory symptoms". Dr Stain estimated at the start of the pandemic infection resulted in vascular damage in between 15 to 20% of patients.
But the pair said vaccination and other treatments, immunity due to prior infection, and the evolution of omicron has caused less intense infection. Dr Strain said we now see mostly upper respiratory symptoms, fever, fatigue, sneezing, sore throat and cough. He noted these are not specific to Covid-19 and could be a manifestation of other viral illnesses.
In the BMJ article Dr Strain said he suspected one of the more recent BA.4 and BA.5 variants "is definitely causing the respiratory illness again...we are starting to see covid pneumonia reappear, although it's nowhere near as severe as it was in the first instance."
But he warned this doesn't mean it won't become more serious in different ways. He said: "The big fear is the disease moving to a more thrombogenic (coagulation of the blood) approach...we were getting massive D-dimer rises [indicating] massive clot risk."
The article said previous variants have seen more covid patients presenting as much as 12 months later with heart attacks or strokes. There is also an increased risk of type 1 diabetes and dementia, according to the BMJ.
Data provided by Liverpool City Council said up to January 13 showed a total of 146 confirmed covid cases in the previous seven day period. This was a decrease of 77 cases on the previous week. The weekly covid rate is around 30 people per 100,000.
48 patients were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 at Liverpool University Hospital Foundation Trust, down 11 on the previous week. Currently, there are 61 beds occupied with covid patients. Around 70% of people in Liverpool have had their first vaccination, according to the most recent available data.
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