Summer Cold or COVID-19?

June 24, 2021

A health advisory from the CDC notes an uptick in cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)—a disease with cold-like symptoms. And an article in Prevention asks physicians how people can tell whether their runny nose and body aches are just a summer cold, or actually COVID-19.

Bottom line: Symptoms of COVID-19 and a cold are “very difficult to differentiate,” according to Richard Watkins, M.D., a professor of internal medicine at Northeast Ohio Medical University and an infectious disease physician. 

Read the discussion in the Prevention article.