There are many viruses circulating this winter, including COVID-19, which is making people ill across the country.
“COVID has continued to circulate year-round, and we’re starting to see patterns where there’s a clear uptick of activity in the winter,” said Dr. Graham Snyder, the medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
This isn’t surprising, Snyder said. In the colder months, we’re more likely to socialize indoors, where germs can more easily spread. Kids are back in school, where they exchange germs with each other, and cold temperatures also cause more virus spread.
Nationally, “emergency department visits and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are rising,” Snyder said.
You’ll likely hear of more people becoming infected with COVID this winter, and you should know the symptoms to look out for to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. Below, doctors share the most common signs of a COVID infection this season.
Cough, shortness of breath, congestion, runny nose, sore throat and fever are all hallmark signs of COVID.
According to Dr. Dawn Nolt, a pediatric infectious disease physician at Oregon Health and Science University, many of the most common COVID symptoms are the ones we all know well at this point, like cough and shortness of breath.
You may also have a fever, chills, congestion, runny nose, sore throat and body aches, Snyder said.
Feeling tired is also a common sign.
“Many patients report an overwhelming sense of fatigue, often severe enough to hinder their daily tasks and activities,” Dr. Janet Nwaukoni, a family physician based in Chicago, told HuffPost in an email.
If you are sick, you shouldn’t push yourself to do things that you can otherwise easily complete when you’re well. Instead, you should prioritize rest, Nolt said.
One symptom people aren’t really experiencing? Loss of taste and smell.
“I think the one thing we’re not seeing is… that loss of smell or taste that people often talked about early in the pandemic,” Nolt explained.
These symptoms haven’t been prevalent since early 2022 when the omicron variant came around, she added.
Photographer, Basak Gurbuz Derman via Getty Images
If you feel sick, you should take a COVID test.
If you’re not feeling well, it’s a good idea to take a COVID test — regardless of whether you have mild symptoms or more severe troubles. A number of winter illnesses have symptoms that overlap with those of COVID-19, but there is antiviral treatment specifically for COVID that can help you feel better faster.
The antiviral treatment is particularly important for folks who are more at risk of having a severe infection. That includes older people and people with underlying health conditions, Snyder said.
“For the antiviral treatment to work, you have to take it earlier in the course of the disease. The longer you wait, the less likely it is to be successful,” Snyder said. In other words, it’s important to know whether you have COVID as soon as possible.
You won’t necessarily have all of the symptoms mentioned above, according to Snyder. You may have one, or a few, he said, “but those are all typical symptoms of COVID-19.” For some people, their infection will result in no symptoms at all, while others get sick enough to end up in the hospital. That’s another reason it’s important to take a test.
To stay healthy, get the most recent COVID shot if you haven’t yet.
“We have a 2024-2025 seasonal COVID vaccine and it’s recommended for everybody six months of age and older,” Snyder said.
The latest shot can help reduce the chances that you get the virus ― and if you do get sick, it can help prevent complications that might otherwise lead to hospitalization and even death.
“The most important reason to get the vaccine is to keep you well, and if you get sick with COVID despite having had the vaccine, it’s a sure bet that you will not be as sick as you would have been, because the vaccine helps prepare your immune system to respond,” Snyder said.
Research shows that the vaccine also reduces your risk of developing long COVID. The shots are available at pharmacies including CVS and Walgreens. You can also go to vaccines.gov to see where you can get vaccinated locally.
Beyond vaccination, hand-washing is also important, Nwaukoni noted. Furthermore, wearing a mask in public can help protect you from getting sick, whether from COVID or another winter virus.