COVID symptoms today look a lot more like a regular cold or flu than they did in 2020. The dominant variants circulating now tend to cause upper respiratory symptoms, with sore throat, congestion, and fatigue topping the list for most people. The dramatic loss of smell that defined early pandemic infections still occurs but is far less common. Here’s what to expect if you catch COVID now.
The Most Common Symptoms Right Now
Current COVID infections produce a familiar cluster of respiratory and whole-body symptoms. The NHS lists these as the core signs of infection:
- Sore throat
- Blocked or runny nose
- Feeling tired or exhausted
- Aching body
- Headache
- A new, continuous cough (coughing a lot for more than an hour, or three or more coughing episodes in 24 hours)
- High temperature (feeling hot, cold, or shivery)
- Shortness of breath
- Loss of appetite
- Loss or change to smell or taste
For most people, the illness now starts with a scratchy or sore throat and fatigue, often followed within a day or two by congestion, body aches, and sometimes a cough. This is a noticeable shift from early pandemic waves, when fever and a dry cough were the hallmark first signs. The experience for a vaccinated or previously infected person often feels indistinguishable from a bad cold, especially in the first few days.
Loss of Smell Is Less Common Than Before
During the original and Alpha waves of the pandemic, roughly 80% of people with a confirmed infection reported losing their sense of smell. That number has dropped significantly with newer variants. When it does happen now, it tends to be milder and shorter-lived, often showing up as a dulled sense of smell rather than a complete absence.
That said, the impact of smell loss shouldn’t be dismissed. A large cohort study found that among people who reported losing their smell during infection, 80% still had measurable reduction on formal testing about two years later. Even more striking, 66% of people who said they hadn’t noticed any change in smell still showed some degree of reduced function when objectively tested. So while current variants cause smell loss less frequently, it can still linger in subtle ways people don’t always recognize.
Stomach Symptoms Are More Common Than You’d Think
COVID isn’t just a respiratory illness. Digestive symptoms show up in a meaningful number of cases and sometimes appear before the cough or congestion does. A multicenter study of hospitalized patients found that about 60% of those with COVID experienced nausea or diarrhea, compared to 43% of patients hospitalized for other reasons. Among patients with digestive symptoms specifically, roughly 62% reported nausea and vomiting.
These gut symptoms can also predict longer-term problems. Patients who experienced vomiting during their acute infection were more likely to develop ongoing digestive issues afterward. In broader analyses, about 12% of people reported digestive symptoms after recovering from COVID, and that number rose to 22% among those who developed long COVID. If your illness starts with nausea or diarrhea rather than a sore throat, COVID is still worth considering.
How It Differs From the Flu and RSV
The honest answer is that COVID, the flu, and RSV are very difficult to tell apart based on symptoms alone. All three can cause fever, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, and body aches. The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases states plainly that because the symptoms overlap so heavily, a diagnostic test is the most reliable way to distinguish between them.
That said, a few patterns can offer clues. COVID is more likely than the flu to cause a change in taste or smell, even if that symptom is less common than it used to be. The flu tends to hit harder and faster, with intense body aches and high fever appearing within hours. RSV often concentrates in the lower airways, producing wheezing and more pronounced breathing difficulty, particularly in young children and older adults. But none of these differences are reliable enough to skip testing if it matters for your treatment or the people around you.
Neurological Symptoms During and After Infection
Headache and dizziness are common during acute COVID and usually resolve as the infection clears. But a subset of people develop neurological symptoms that persist well beyond the initial illness. The CDC identifies brain fog (difficulty thinking or concentrating), ongoing headaches, and dizziness upon standing as key neurological features of long COVID. Fatigue and brain fog are among the most commonly reported long-term symptoms overall.
Brain fog can feel like trouble finding words, difficulty following conversations, poor short-term memory, or a general sense of mental sluggishness. For some people it lasts weeks, for others months. More than 200 distinct long COVID symptoms have been identified, but the neurological ones tend to be the most disruptive to daily life because they affect work, driving, and routine decision-making.
What to Do if You Have Symptoms
If you develop a sore throat, congestion, and fatigue, there’s no way to know whether it’s COVID without testing. Rapid home tests still work for current variants, though they’re most accurate a day or two after symptoms begin rather than at the very first sign of illness. If your first test is negative but symptoms persist, testing again 24 to 48 hours later improves reliability.
Most people with current COVID infections recover at home with rest and fluids, similar to managing any respiratory virus. Fever and body aches respond to standard over-the-counter pain relievers. The key symptoms to watch for are shortness of breath that worsens, chest pain or pressure, confusion, or an inability to stay awake, all of which warrant prompt medical attention regardless of whether the cause is COVID, the flu, or something else entirely.