A study by the UK’s Office for National Statistics shows that people with the UK variant of Covid-19 are more likely to have coughs, muscle aches and fatigue.
- Conducted among 6,000 patients with Covid-19, the study by the Office for National Statistics shows that people infected with the British variant have more pronounced symptoms, in particular coughing, fatigue and body aches.
- According to specialists, these more developed symptoms are a sign that people have a higher viral load.
A new variant and new symptoms.
While the B 1.1.7 variant, also called the “British variant”, twice as contagious, currently represents nearly 10% of Covid-19 cases in France, the Office for National Statistics, the Bureau des national statistics from the United Kingdom, looked at the symptoms developed by patients.
The studybased on data from 6,000 people who tested positive for Covid-19, shows that certain symptoms are more significant in people infected with the British variant, in particular cough and fatigue.
Cough, headache, fatigue and body aches
The British organization interviewed people infected with SARS-CoV-2 from November 15, 2020 to January 16, 2021. He specifies that these are “self-declarations” of people who have convalesced at home, and therefore excludes hospitalized patients and those in retirement homes.
First observation made by the authors of the study: people infected with the B.1.1.7 variant are less likely to suffer from a loss of taste and smell. The patients infected with the original strain are respectively 18% and 19% to declare having lost the taste and the sense of smell, against 15% and 16% of the people affected by the British variant.
On the other hand, the latter were more prone to coughing: 35% of them declared coughing, against 28% of patients infected with the “classic” strain. The British variant is also more likely to trigger great fatigue, the second most reported symptom after cough with 32% of patients with the B.1.1.7. variant, compared to 29% of patients with the previous strain.
Headaches are also more prevalent (32.5% of patients against 29% infected with the common strain), as are muscle pain, which affects one in five patients, against 22% of those infected with the common strain of SARS -CoV-2.
A higher viral load
In general, the researchers note that people infected with the B.1.1.7. have a 53% risk of developing symptoms of Covid-19, compared to 48% in those affected by the common strain.
How to explain it? Asked by the BBCProfessor Lawrence Young, virologist and professor of molecular oncology at the University of Warwick (England), suggests that it is the 23 changes of this variant compared to the original Wuhan virus which “could affect the body’s immune response and also influence the range of symptoms associated with the infection”. Infected people seem to produce more virus and this could lead to more widespread infection in the body “possibly explaining more coughing, muscle aches and fatigue”continues Professor Young.
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