Kent doctor talks about 6 new symptoms of COVID-19

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On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released six new, official symptoms of COVID-19.

These new symptoms include chills, shaking with chills, loss of smell and taste, muscle aches, headaches and sore throat. The initial symptoms were fever, cough and shortness of breath.

“Our understanding of COVID-19 continues to evolve, it’s a very complex disease. With the patients that we have taken care of with COVID-19, there are typical symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath, but we have learned that there are many atypical symptoms. That list of atypical symptoms continues to grow every day,” said Laura Forman, MD, FACEP and chief of emergency medicine at Kent Hospital.

Although many COVID-19 patients have experienced and reported these symptoms early on, the CDC and local health community have been working to better articulate them and make citizens aware as the disease progresses.

“These atypical symptoms have been reported for quite some time now, but now we are able to report them with better literature and list them as official symptoms. We have seen some of these symptoms from the beginning, but now with more cases we are understanding that these symptoms are more common in COVID-19,” said Forman.

Forman urges people to continue to practice social distancing, keep an eye on their health, and receive the appropriate medical attention should they begin exhibiting these symptoms.

“It is important that people are monitoring themselves for these symptoms,” said Forman. “If they experience these symptoms, they have to isolate themselves since they may be infectious. They need to test themselves, even people that do not have symptoms, if you are exposed you need to be tested for COVID-19. This is a confounding disease and we are seeing new symptoms day by day.”

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