Patient history, context and a few symptoms may help distinguish between the conditions
For the third year in a row, seasonal allergies have coexisted with COVID-19. And according to clinicians, it has been increasingly difficult to tell the two apart.
Getting a COVID test is the most efficient way to know for sure, but it can take days to test positive after developing symptoms. Still, there are a few peculiarities that may help distinguish between COVID and allergies. The predominant form of COVID in the U.S. is Omicron’s subvariant BA.2. As of April 30, it was responsible for almost 62 percent of infections in the country.
Sedaghat studies a condition called chronic rhinosinusitis, which is also associated with an altered sense of smell, and his team was one of the first to describe the severity of olfactory problems in COVID patients. But he notes that this symptom is fairly rare among Omicron infections.
The context is also important. “If an individual starts having symptoms right after they mowed the lawn or did yard work or cleaned out a dusty attic or even sat out in their backyard on a freshly warm day, that could be a stronger indication of allergies,” Sedaghat says. If, on the other hand, the symptoms start after an indoor gathering where you were potentially exposed to someone who was sick, that may point toward COVID.
The process of deciding whether you should quarantine is more complex. It should be made on a case-by-case basis, depending on many factors, including your vaccination status, whether you had COVID in the past three months and whether you were recently exposed to a sick person. The CDC has a quarantine and isolation calculator that can help you make that decision.
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