UK's delayed Covid list - 9th May 2022

The UK's official list of Covid symptoms now recognises a further nine signs of infection, from a sore throat and achy muscles to diarrhoea. This updated guidance has come over two years into the pandemic, while free Covid testing in England had been halted just days earlier, with the National Health Service (NHS) cautioning that many of the newly listed symptoms are shared with colds and flu.

The World Health Organisation and several other nations alongside the US have been using an extended list of symptoms from earlier on in the pandemic meanwhile the UK had been deliberating over which symptoms directly linked to Covid and could entitle someone to a Covid test. The UK's previously recognised signs of a coronavirus infection itemised: a high temperature, a new persistent cough and loss of sense of taste or smell.

These were originally chosen as they directly and exclusively correlated to most coronavirus cases. However, the updated version has listed a further nine symptoms namely: shortness of breath, feeling exhausted, aches in the body, a headache, a sore throat, nasal congestion or runny nose, loss of appetite, diarrhoea and feeling or being sick.

Meanwhile, the UK's experiencing a record high number of Covid infections with 4.9 million reported cases, exactly one in 13 people having a positive test in the final week of March, mere days before the end of free testing kicked in. The NHS has made a public appeal for people to stay home and self-isolate where they're experiencing Covid symptoms and a temperature, or if they're so unwell they can't undertake work.

A professor at King's College London, Tim Spector, has been pushing for a more comprehensive list of symptoms, based on observing the data gathered on symptoms from the Zoe Covid-19 tracking app. He stated: "Main symptoms of coronavirus have finally changed after two years of lobbying … hurrah!"