Official guidance from the French government and Santé Publique France lists key COVID-19 symptoms: fever, dry cough, fatigue, headache, sore throat, shortness of breath, and muscle aches.
Health experts note additional signs, including disorders of taste and smell. On C à vous on March 16, Dr. Michel Cymes explained: "We can add one because some patients only had taste and smell disorders, a loss of smell. It happens with the flu too, the flu virus can shoot the olfactory nets that are between the two eyes. There are people who, after a flu, no longer had a sense of smell."
Real-world accounts align. Dr. Jonathan Peterschmitt, a general practitioner in Mulhouse, told Euronews: "I did not have very explicit symptoms… It was closer to a flu-like state, with a slight loss of smell, a little loss of taste, a little irritated nose, aches and great fatigue." Anesthetist-resuscitator Angelo Vavassori in Bergamo, Italy, reported similar issues.
Another rare indicator is conjunctivitis, per the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The virus can inflame the conjunctiva—the membrane covering the eye's white—via aerosol exposure. A Journal of Medical Virology study of 30 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in China detected viral traces in one patient's eye secretions.
Eye protection isn't standard for the general public yet. Above all, stay home to help stop the spread.
