People who get Covid after being vaccinated three times tend to display similar symptoms, medical experts have discovered.
Researchers at Imperial College London have collected data from 17,000 people between March 2020 and 2022, both vaccinated and not. They found that there are four main cold-like symptoms amongst the triple vaccinated, including sneezing and a hoarse voice.
With each new variant, the amount of people reporting that they had symptoms increased. And with the most recent strains of Covid, thousands of vaccinated people displayed symptoms that they said affected their daily life, the Express reports.
In their study, the researchers wrote: "They wrote in their study: “In a subgroup of 5,598 double- and triple-vaccinated swab-positive individuals with [Omicron] BA.1 or BA.2, those infected with BA.2 were 54% more likely to report symptoms that interfered with their ability to carry out day-to-day activities ‘a lot’"
The people in this group reported four specific symptoms that they experienced. These were all “cold-like” symptoms: runny nose, sore throat, sneezing, and hoarse voice.
The first variant of Omicron, BA.1, appeared on November 21 in South Africa. The dominant strain is now BQ1, but the researchers say that the cold-like symptoms don't settle amongst variants.
The ZOE Health study, which collects the reports of people with Covid through an app, found that sore throat is the most common symptom for fully vaccinated people.
This is the ZOE Health study ranking of the most common symptoms for people with two vaccinations:
- Sore throat
- Runny nose
- Blocked nose
- Persistent cough
- Headache
The “top” symptoms of Covid are similar for those who are unvaccinated. The ZOE Health study listed these as the top symptoms for the unvaccinated:
- Headache
- Sore Throat
- Runny Nose
- Fever
- Persistent cough
The BQ1 variant of Omicron has been found in roughly around half of the Covid cases in the UK.
According to Professor Stephen Powis, medical director of the NHS, the health body is expecting this to be the “most challenging winter yet”.
He said: “In some countries in Europe that have it you can already see growth in hospital admissions. No doubt these pressures will increase.”
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