COVID-19 is a pandemic viral disease with catastrophic global impact. This disease is more contagious than influenza such that cluster outbreaks occur frequently. Researchers have recently revealed a symptom which may precede fever warning of an infection.
A recent study from the University of Southern California identified a distinct order of symptoms among COVID-19 patients.
In the study, which was published in Frontiers Public Health, modelling the onset of symptoms of COVID-19 was further investigated.
The study noted: “The current pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has undergone an observed exponential increase of cases that has overrun hospitals across the world.
“In this study, we first defined this specific application of a Markov Process applied to a graded partially ordered set, which we refer to as the Stochastic Progression Model.
“In this case, our graded poset represents all possible combinations of symptoms and all possible orders of symptom occurrence.
“The most likely order of occurrence of symptoms in COVID-19 is fever, cough, nausea/vomiting, and diarrhoea.
“It is not detectable whether nausea/vomiting or diarrhoea are the first symptoms in influenza, but after these two, the least likely path continues from there to fever then cough.”
It’s important to note that just because a person may have diarrhoea, it doesn’t necessarily mean its coronavirus.
It’s more likely to be caused by COVID-19 if the diarrhoea is accompanied by more common coronavirus symptoms.
Diarrhoea is very common, and it’s usually caused by a stomach bug.
A person’s diarrhoea should usually clear up by itself within a few days.
The researchers found that most symptomatic patients start with a fever, followed by a cough.
After that, those infected may experience a sore throat, headache, or muscle aches and pains, followed by nausea or vomiting, then, finally, diarrhoea.
“This report suggests that diarrhoea as an early symptom indicates a more aggressive disease, because each patient in this dataset that initially experienced diarrhoea had pneumonia or respiratory failure eventually,” the researchers wrote.
What should you do if you have symptoms of coronavirus?
If you are showing symptoms of coronavirus, even if they are mild, you must stay at home.
You must not leave your home at all for a period of at least seven days.
The NHS website states that if you still have a high temperature after seven days, you must continue to stay at home until your temperature returns to normal.
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