The Biggest Early Warning Signs Of A COVID-19 Infection Now

We’re still very much in the throes of winter ― and that means we’re still dealing with lots of respiratory viruses. This includes COVID.

Overall, COVID cases “are down a little bit in most places… we were, from a hospital admission standpoint, they were probably around 35,000 a week a month ago and now it’s closer to probably 20,000 admissions a week,” said Dr. Thomas Holland, an associate professor of infectious diseases at Duke University School of Medicine in North Carolina, adding that we did not have the huge uptick in cases that occurred two years ago with the initial omicron surge.

“So, we’ve had a definite uptick, or winter COVID season that hopefully is waning now,” Holland said. But he noted that it’s hard to predict what COVID will do, making it important to understand the signs of an infection.

Below, experts share the first signs of a COVID-19 infection and what to do if you come down symptoms:

The early signs of a COVID infection can include headache or fatigue.

“COVID can most commonly present like most other upper respiratory tract infections at this point,” Holland said, meaning that it’s hard to tell the difference between COVID, the flu or RSV without taking a COVID test.

“Really, the symptoms haven’t changed too much variant to variant… it just kind of varies [from] person to person,” explained Dr. S. Wesley Long, the medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist Hospital.

For a lot of folks, the first symptoms will be a headache or fatigue, according to Holland. But those can be in combination with a host of other symptoms, too.

“The symptoms are still going to be that of really any respiratory virus, so it could be a sore throat, it could start with nasal congestion and cough,