There are six types of Covid-19

At the beginning of January, when theepidemic emerged in Wuhan, the symptoms from Covid-19 then resembled those of a classic respiratory infection: cough, fever, difficulty in breathing. January 5, WHO then reported « cases of pneumonia of unknown origin “. As the diffusion from pandemic and the multiplication of cases, a plethora of new symptoms appeared : loss of taste and smell, pains muscle, headache, fatigue, conjunctivitis, diarrhea, skin lesions on the toes… In general, symptoms seem to be more severe in older people and in men than in women, but the forms that Covid-19 takes are extremely variable from one individual to another, without always having an explanation.

Six symptom clusters

L’application Covid Symptôme Study, published by the company Zoe in partnership with the King’s College from London and available in UK, US and Sweden, records all user-reported symptoms. Using data from 1,653 patients, researchers from King’s College were able to identify ” clusters ”Of symptoms each reflecting a particular form of Covid. According to their study published on the server MedRxiv, there are six forms of Covid-19 depending on the symptoms and their duration, ranging from the mildest to the most severe.

An impressive number of factors

It’s hard to say what makes you suffer from one form over another. ” Everyone lives in a different place, has a specific diet, has its own genome and epigenome, has a different medical condition and access to care », Explains in the magazine New Scientist Angela Rasmussen, from the University of Columbia. Symptoms also depend on the dose of exposure to virus (the more we are exposed to high viral load, the greater the risk of developing a severe form) and door virus entry (nose, mouth, eye…). We also know that children develop particular forms, with in particular more frequent gastrointestinal symptoms (diarrhea, vomiting, etc.).

Predicting the severity of Covid-19 using symptom clusters

« These different types of disease could constitute a tool for predicting individual medical needs. », Explain the authors. Patients affected by forms 5 and 6 are, for example, more at risk of being hospitalized. Those in groups 3 and 4 should also be given special attention. This research should also make it possible to identify the first signs of the disease, which could facilitate early detection and avoid the contaminations. From the first results, it seems that headache and fatigue are among the first symptoms, which makes a diagnostic more difficult since these symptoms are not very specific.