Omicron has reached 100%. She is the variant of the coronavirus responsible for all new infections in Italy, according to the latest monitoring by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità. Within its family, Omicron BA.5 is present in 93.1% of positive samples, its sister Omicron BA.4 is at 5.7% and BA.2, responsible for the spring surge, is relegated today at 1.1%.
The hit parade of new symptoms
The evolution of symptoms related to the new variants is closely followed by Great Britain. Through the Zoe app, run by King’s College London, the British government draws up a periodic ranking of coronavirus disorders. Nose and throat, including coughs, burns and sneezing, continue to be Omicron’s main targets, according to information reported by 63,000 British infected.
Compared to the previous variants, the lungs remain less involved (and it is the most important positive news), the nervous system (brain fog is less frequent) and the senses of taste and smell, compromised more rarely than in the first waves of the pandemic. Fever is also less common today than in the past.
The most up-to-date version of the symptom chart sees burning in the throat in the first place (58% of positives report it, it is one of the first symptoms to appear and has become increasingly common as the new variants progress). This is followed by headache, another of Omicron’s hallmarks (49%), stuffy nose (40%), dry cough (40%), runny nose (40%), cough with phlegm (37%), voice hoarse (35%, with a 24% jump over Delta), sneezing (32%), fatigue (27%), pain in muscles and joints (25%), dizziness (18%), lymph nodes of the swollen neck (15%), swollen eyes (14%), changes in smell (13%), chest tightness (13%), shortness of breath (11%), fever (13%), chills (12 %), air hunger (11%), earache (11%), loss of smell (10%).
The progress made with Omicron
The cough, when present, is however less persistent than in Delta. Another British research conducted at the University of Oxford (the Covid-19 Infection Survey) quantified the collapse of symptoms related to taste and smell: they went from 44% of those infected in 2021, with Delta, to about 15% with Omicron in 2022.
The symptoms of Omicron are less lasting than those of Delta, the previous variant, circulated in 2021. It went from 8.9 days to 6.9 in the unvaccinated and from 7.7 to 4.4 in the three-dose vaccinated. , again according to King’s College analysis.
Stomach pain and diarrhea: Covid is not always the cause
Sporadic symptoms continue to include stomach pain, which can take the form of normal loss of appetite or diarrhea. It usually lasts two or three days and depends on the fact that the coronavirus, in addition to the airways, can also invade the tissues of the gastrointestinal tract. This is why Sars-Cov2 is also found in feces: one more reason to wash your hands when living next to non-infected people and the reason why wastewater analysis is able to quantify the extent of the pandemic in a given area.
Isolated tummy pains, with no other symptoms, can hardly be attributed to Covid. In fact, their causes can be the most varied: generally they are microorganisms of different families, such as noroviruses or rotaviruses, which often circulate in waves exactly like coronaviruses. According to King’s College, the presence of gastrointestinal symptoms has increased from 30% with the Alpha variant to 16-20% of Omicron, and is rarer in vaccinated than in unvaccinated.
Other infrequent symptoms are skin rashes, particularly annoying because they are accompanied by itching. At the beginning of the pandemic they affected about one in ten infected, now their frequency has reduced. Even the tongue, with the infection, could become covered with patches (so-called geographic tongue). The virus could cause ulcers and small sores to appear inside the mouth, but even this symptom, relatively common during the first waves, especially in severe patients, has now become rare in vaccinated.
The long covid is shorter
Long Covid (the persistence of symptoms for more than a month) is also becoming less frequent, thanks to the lower severity of Omicron and the greater diffusion of vaccines. King’s College also calculates that the sequelae of the infection affected 10.8% of the infected in 2021 and 4.4% of the current ones.
British researchers have identified three types of long Covid: that linked to neurological symptoms (loss of memory, taste and smell, clouded mind, persistent headache), to respiratory symptoms (shortness of breath even for small efforts, due to damage permanent lungs) and inflammatory symptoms, including abdominal discomfort and lack of strength. With Omicron, in particular, long Covid with neurological symptoms has become less frequent. The other two forms are also rarer and lighter today.