It’s not the flu. It may not be Covid but these are not flu symptoms. EVERYBODY needs to know what influenza symptoms are. Sudden onset (people feel fine in the morning, have fever and body aches by night). Fever, usually high, with bad body aches for 3-5 days (I used to work in a busy urgent care center and see 30 cases a day. No rapid flu tests back then but when someone told me their hair hurt or they felt like a truck ran over them in flu season I knew it was flu). After 3-5 days the fever and body aches subside, but there’s often a nonproductive cough that lingers for a week or two.
Covid can have a sudden onset but usually is a little more gradual. May have fever but may not, or just a low grade fever. Loss of sense of smell or taste (or distorted sense of smell) does not happen in every case but makes it highly likely to be Covid if present. Marked shortness of breath often appears around day 7. Cough can become quite productive in some people. Diarrhea or other GI complaints may be present, or may not. The range of strange symptoms and range of severity is quite broad. I test my sense of smell every day because loss of smell can precede symptoms and some people don’t notice they’ve lost it.
