The symptoms of current COVID strains look similar to what earlier Omicron waves produced: fever, cough, sore throat, fatigue, body aches, congestion, and headache. The virus continues to evolve, with subvariants like KP.3.1.1, LP.8.1, and others circulating in 2025, but none have introduced a dramatically different symptom profile. What has shifted is how often certain symptoms show up, particularly digestive issues, and how the illness tends to play out in severity.
The Core Symptom List
Most people infected with current COVID subvariants experience a combination of upper respiratory and systemic symptoms. The most commonly reported ones include:
- Sore throat, often one of the earliest signs
- Cough, usually dry at first
- Fever or chills
- Fatigue and general body aches
- Runny or stuffy nose
- Headache
- Shortness of breath, more common in severe cases
Symptoms can appear anywhere from 2 to 14 days after exposure, though most people notice something within 3 to 5 days. The illness tends to feel like a bad cold or mild flu for the majority of vaccinated or previously infected people, with the worst symptoms lasting about 3 to 5 days before gradually improving.
Digestive Symptoms Are More Common Than You’d Expect
One pattern that has become clearer with recent variants is how often COVID hits the gut. Roughly a third of people with current strains present with gastrointestinal symptoms at the start of their illness, sometimes without any cough or congestion at all. The main digestive complaints are diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting.
This matters because if your first symptoms are stomach-related, you might not think to test for COVID. If you develop unexplained nausea or diarrhea during a period of high community spread, it’s worth considering a test even if you don’t have a cough or fever yet. Respiratory symptoms may follow a day or two later, or in some cases, they never appear at all.
Loss of Taste and Smell Is Less Common Now
Early in the pandemic, losing your sense of taste or smell was practically a signature COVID symptom. With the Omicron-descended variants that dominate in 2025, this symptom is far less frequent. It still happens occasionally, but it’s no longer a reliable indicator. If you’re waiting for that telltale sign before testing, you’ll likely miss your infection window entirely. The current strains are more likely to feel like a standard respiratory illness than the distinctive experience many people had in 2020 or 2021.
How to Tell It Apart From Flu or RSV
The honest answer is that you often can’t, at least not from symptoms alone. COVID, flu, and RSV all cause fever, cough, congestion, and fatigue. There are some subtle tendencies: flu tends to come on suddenly with intense body aches and high fever, while COVID more often starts with a scratchy throat and builds gradually. RSV tends to produce heavier congestion and wheezing, especially in young children and older adults. But these patterns overlap so much that a diagnostic test is the only reliable way to tell them apart.
Combination tests that check for COVID and flu simultaneously are widely available at pharmacies and clinics, which can help sort things out when multiple viruses are circulating at the same time.
When and How to Test
If you develop symptoms, the FDA recommends testing immediately with a home antigen test. Here’s the important part: a single negative test doesn’t rule out COVID, especially in the first day or two of symptoms. If your first test is negative but you still feel sick, test again 48 hours later. The current guidance calls for at least two tests over three days for symptomatic people before you can be more confident in a negative result.
False negatives are common early in infection because the virus hasn’t replicated enough to be detectable on a rapid test. Testing on day two or three of symptoms tends to produce the most accurate results. If you’re getting negative rapid tests but your symptoms are worsening, a PCR test through a clinic or lab is more sensitive and can catch infections that home tests miss.
Severity With Current Variants
The subvariants circulating now are all descendants of Omicron, which generally causes less severe lung disease than the Delta or original strains did. For most healthy, vaccinated adults, current COVID infections resolve at home within a week or so. The people at highest risk for serious illness remain the same groups that have been vulnerable throughout the pandemic: adults over 65, people with weakened immune systems, and those with chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, or lung disease.
Even with milder average severity, COVID still sends people to the hospital, particularly during winter surges. The risk of lingering symptoms (often called long COVID) also persists with current variants, with fatigue, brain fog, and exercise intolerance being the most commonly reported issues lasting weeks or months after the acute infection clears.