Coronavirus symptoms change with the emergence of each new variant

Researchers believe it is necessary to continue

monitoring the evolution of coronavirus symptoms.

The significant increase in the number of Coronavirus cases since the emergence of the new Coronavirus variant highlights the extent to which the disease has evolved since the start of the epidemic.

Cases of Covid-19 infection have increased again following the emergence of the new strain called “JN.1 Covid”, which appeared last September in France. The percentage of infection with the new Corona mutant reached around 60 percent of new infections in early January, according to the data tracking index of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

At the same time, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.K. Health Security Agency shows that hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19 are significantly lower than in January 2023. Primary care doctors claim is impossible to distinguish between Covid-19 symptoms and flu symptoms without a PCR test.

Ziad Tokmachi, a doctor at Chartfield Surgery Hospital in south-west London, UK, said: “When Covid first appeared, its symptoms were very strange and mysterious; brain fog, fatigue, and loss of taste and smell. But now I see that these symptoms have mutated in a way that makes them more like flu symptoms. » “It is difficult to distinguish between the two clinically. »

In the meantime, the above indicates that the virus is mutating to become progressively less pathogenic, and epidemiologists believe that the reality of the situation could be more precise.

Greg Towers, professor of molecular virology at University College London in the UK, said: "This variant is not necessarily less pathogenic, but it affects people who are less likely to catch it because they already have suffered from the Coronavirus and have the virus.” ability to emit a more organized immune response against it.

Researchers believe the emergence of new variants could be the result of low-protection

of the vaccine.

He added that the most important lesson to learn from the years during which the epidemic spread is that the symptoms that appear in patients depend greatly on their previous immune status. He believes that during the first two years of the coronavirus's spread, patients' responses to the virus were primarily determined by their immune status, as well as their prior exposure to other coronaviruses.

But today, in 2024, the immune response to disease is determined by a more complex set of factors; including how many times a person has already been infected with the virus, what vaccines they have taken, and whether the immunity they developed from the vaccines is waning.

As a result, Dennis Nash, an epidemiologist at New York University in the US, says people contracting Covid-19 for the first time are at greater risk, especially if it’s been a long time since the last vaccine booster they took.

“There are still people who have somehow managed to continue to underestimate Covid,” Nash said. “If they have not been vaccinated against the virus or if they have been insufficiently vaccinated, they will be at greater risk of developing serious and lasting symptoms. »

However, the coronavirus continues to mutate, making it more efficient at entering the human body. The JN.1 variant also has a greater ability to evade the immune system than sub-Omicron variants of the coronavirus. But it also changes how it affects the human body.

In 2023, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine suggested that people now infected with Omicron-related subvariants were only 6 to 7 percent more likely to lose their sense of smell or taste than being infected in the early stages of the spread of COVID. -19.

Instead, some doctors at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom said their patients were more likely to experience diarrhea or headaches as symptoms of the JN.1 virus variant or variants. EG. 5.

“But there is a major change in viral tropism, that is, the susceptibility of cells to infection,” Towers added. It depends on the sequence of the Spike protein. Almost everyone has been infected with the virus or has been immunized with coronavirus vaccines, so the virus is exposed to extreme pressure to evade immune responses and be able to continue transmitting. The sequence of the Spike protein has therefore evolved considerably. This development led the virus to infect different cells and enter the human body, which is why people no longer lose their sense of smell or taste when infected.

Researchers are still trying to discover whether some of the more subtle internal consequences of Covid infection differ between variants of the virus, or whether there are differences in the immune response resulting from the drop in the level of protection conferred by vaccine immunization.

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