Doctors who treat Covid describe the ways the illness has gotten milder and shifted over time to mostly affect the upper respiratory tract.

Doctors say they’re finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish Covid from allergies or the common cold, even as hospitalizations tick up.

The illness’ past hallmarks, such as a dry cough or the loss of sense of taste or smell, have become less common. Instead, doctors are observing milder disease, mostly concentrated in the upper respiratory tract.

“It isn’t the same typical symptoms that we were seeing before. It’s a lot of congestion, sometimes sneezing, usually a mild sore throat,” said Dr. Erick Eiting, vice chair of operations for emergency medicine at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York City.

The sore throat usually arrives first, he said, then congestion.

  • @[email protected]
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    1010 months ago

    Viruses don’t have goals. You are anthropomorphizing them. What viruses do is mutate. If mutations have more fitness, they will spread more effectively. That says nothing about mortality nor morbidity. With this disease it spreads in the early stage, which long before the person who has caught it either dies, recovers, gets long COVID, etc.

    • @Telodzrum
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      2910 months ago

      It’s not anthropomorphizing, it’s abstraction and it’s incredibly common in evolutionary science to speak in this manner.

      • @hihello
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        410 months ago

        True yeah, but it was kind of a “no shit” response.

          • @BottleOfAlkahest
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            710 months ago

            I think it may depend on your instance what up/down votes you see cause I still see downvotes on that comment but I have a different instance than any of you.

        • Drusas
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          210 months ago

          Downvotes don’t federate. I see no downvotes as a kbin user, but a Lemmy user might.