Acknowledging odd coronavirus symptoms is vital to stopping its spread

Covid-19 can have long-lived symptoms including exhaustion, weight loss and rashes. Unless we officially recognise them, we can’t identify people who may have caught it or trace their contacts

Marilyn Nieves/iStock/GettyImages

THE UK has three, the US 11 and Australia 14. What are these? Covid-19 symptoms. That is according to advice from each country’s health body. How can the same disease affect people so differently in each country? The answer is: it doesn’t.

The disparity is a reflection of how little we have known about the symptoms of covid-19, until now. What we initially thought of as a respiratory disease is in fact a much more formidable enemy. It can kill via a two-pronged attack, through provoking our immune systems and disrupting blood clotting (see “How the coronavirus kills people – and how to stop …