Runny nose means you do not have coronavirus – Do not confuse

New Delhi : For those who are having runny nose must not confuse it as a symptom for coronavirus; in India, the weather is changing and runny nose means you could be just having common cold, this is what a majority of experts have suggested so far.

Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, urged parents not to confuse the symptom of cold with coronavirus and in times like this, when 25,000 teachers were reportedly asked "to self-isolate because of swab shortage", it becomes important to understand the difference between common cold and COVID-19. 

Professor Tim Spector told Daily Mail that children with a runny nose don't have COVID-19, however, they may be suffering from common cold and they must get the medication accordingly. At a time when testing is also a challenge for most of the countries, including India, one must try to filter out the cases and only the needy ones should go to lab for testing.

Professor Tim Spector, of King's College London, urged parents to check for the runny nose as one of the symptoms while laying down the common COVID-19 symptoms in kids. 

In UK, the schools have reopened and with that the fear among the parents is immense. This could be taken as a dummy before India opens up its schools too. 

While there is a difference in the symptoms suffered but the most standard ones may not be visible in kids, for example, high temperature, continuous cough and loss of taste and smell that are common in people above the age of 18. 

"You don't see (loss of taste and smell) in older people and in kids at all. They don't seem to lose that sense of smell and they don't seem to get the cough and shortness of breath as much either so it's a different picture at different age groups, presumably because the immune systems are behaving differently." 

Specially in children, the most common symptom is fatigue.