Sars-Cov-2 is a respiratory disease that affects your respiratory system and lungs. After extensive researches, medical experts were able to identify common symptoms in an infected person.
Previously, fever, shortness of breath, dry cough, and fatigue were termed as the major symptoms for COVID-19. However, after examining more cases, the CDC has identified six of the least common symptoms. These symptoms include chills, loss of smell and taste, shivering, muscle pain, headache, and sore throat.
Are Sore Throat and Headache COVID-19 Symptoms?
As mentioned above, sore throat and headache certainly are two of the common symptoms of coronavirus. However, the CDC has not revealed how common these symptoms are among the patients.
Anyone who experiences them now panics and gets scared for no reason. Let’s find out the truth. How can you determine if your headache or sore throat is a sign of COVID-19, or is just a regular sickness because of the weather?
Is Your Sore Throat Because of COVID-19?
A Yale Medicine Laryngologist, Micheal Lerner, MD, explains that sore throat is only found in 10% of the patients with Sars-Cov-2. This indicates that it is the least common symptom of COVID-19. Another report published by WHO suggests that 13.9% of cases with sore throat out of 55,924 active COVID-19 cases are from China. Although it is a bit higher than what was reported in the previous study, the number is still lower than cases with fever (87.9%), and dry cough (67.7%).
With the help of these studies, we can acknowledge the fact that if you have a sore throat, it doesn’t mean you are suffering from COVID-19 too. However, if you are too paranoid, you can get yourself tested at a local hospital.
Headache, one of the most common symptoms of flu, is also on the CDC list. Let’s see if the headache makes you a potential case for COVID-19.
Is Headache a sign of COVID-19?
Headache is very common amongst the masses. If you have a headache, does it indicate that you have contracted the virus? To answer this question, let’s look at what the statistics say.
As mentioned earlier, out of 55,924 corona patients, only 13.9% had complained about headaches. For further analyses, the CDC also examined patients who were hospitalized. The results showed that only 2% of people reported headaches.
The statistics prove that headache is not as common as fever, dry cough, etc. However, according to reports, there are many cases where people experienced headaches before getting a dry cough.
Theory suggests that when a person gets anosmia due to COVID-19, it causes severe headaches.
If you want to figure out whether your headache is a symptom of COVID-19, read further.
How to Detect COVID-19 Headache?
If you want to identify if you have a headache because of migraine or coronavirus, there are no specific indications mentioned yet. However, some of the indications are listed below. Before we list them down for you, know that these are just assumptions based on people’s reports. There is no specific study published as yet that authorizes these hypotheses.
Estimated Indications for Headache
The intensity of the headache is either mild or severe
The intensity of the headache worsens when you bend down
You have pressing or pulsing sensations with pain
Moreover, if the headache leads you to develop fever or any other symptoms of COVID-19, then you must get yourself checked.
Conclusion
We have answered the question: is headache a COVID-19 symptom. The simple answer is, it can be, as it is categorized as one of the least common symptoms of COVID-19.
