What’s it like having COVID-19? Canadians share their symptoms amid Omicron
By Jennifer Ferreira
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TORONTO (CTV Network) — Had it not been for a rapid antigen test sent home from school, Mirna Alassaad would never have suspected that her 17-year-old son was infected with COVID-19.
“He just wanted to check how it works,” she told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Tuesday. “We didn’t think, not even one per cent, that he might have [COVID-19].”
Alassaad explained that her son had not been showing any of the usual signs of COVID-19, which include fever, coughing, fatigue, and a loss of taste or smell. All he had at the time was a runny nose, she said.
After her son received positive results using two different rapid tests, Alassaad said she, her husband, and their four children went into isolation. A couple of days later, on Dec. 12, Alassaad said she and her husband began experiencing symptoms that included a congested nose, fever, headaches, a sore throat and body fatigue.
Her children began experiencing symptoms by that time as well, although they mainly just had fevers and felt tired, she said.
“It wasn’t severe, it was like a regular flu,” Alassaad said of her own symptoms. “We’ve known some other people who got COVID and they were healthy [with] mild symptoms. We were hoping that we would be the same.”
On Dec. 14, all six family members went in for lab tests and the following day, the results were in – they had all tested positive for the Omicron variant. One thing Alassaad said she noticed was how quickly different family members developed their symptoms.
“Four of the household members started experiencing symptoms at the same time, so there was a very fast spread within the house,” she said.
Still, she described her family’s symptoms as mild. She was told by her regional public health unit that this was the case because all members that are eligible have been fully vaccinated. No one in the family has underlying health conditions either, Alassaad said.
As of now, she said her family is doing better. Her children are no longer fatigued or feverish, and the only thing she and her husband are still contending with is the occasional dry cough.
WHAT OTHER CANADIANS HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCING
Alassaad is just one of several people who wrote to CTVNews.ca sharing that they were recently diagnosed with COVID-19. Case counts across Canada have been rising rapidly over the last couple of weeks. Yesterday alone, the country saw its highest number of daily cases reported in a single day so far with more than 10,600 infections, according to data compiled by CTVNews.ca.
Fuelling much of this spread is the new Omicron variant, which is proving to be highly transmissible. While it was first detected in November, the rapid rate of community spread is leading experts to believe it will soon overtake Delta to become the most dominant variant in different countries across the globe.
Although many who have shared their stories with CTVNews.ca say they have not been told whether they contracted the Omicron variant specifically, each one has described experiencing a similar set of symptoms.
In an email to CTVNews.ca, Mitch Soiffer said he started developing a cough a few days after touching down in New York City from Montreal on Dec. 12. Soon after, he was experiencing a major headache and body fatigue, he said, followed by chills. Almost a week after arriving in New York, he said he received confirmation that he tested positive for Omicron.
While he said he still feels tired, he isn’t experiencing breathing issues. The 39-year-old also said he received two doses of the Moderna vaccine.
Karina Panasci said she tested positive for COVID-19 after being exposed to the virus through colleagues of her significant other. She said she was only in contact with them for about 10 to 15 minutes and stood about six feet away.
About five days later, after a trip to the gym, she said she started to experience symptoms of COVID-19.
“I had a headache, felt nauseous and my whole body was sore,” she wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca. “I just did not feel like myself.”
The next day, after discovering her significant other’s colleagues had tested positive for the virus, Panasci said she went and got a test done herself. The results showed that she was positive, while her significant other tested negative. Prior to this, she already received two doses of the vaccine, she said.
The next few days included symptoms such as coughing, congestion, and a headache, but all were manageable, Panasci said. By Dec. 17, she said she had lost her senses of taste and smell, something she’s still dealing with, although the cough and congestion have subsided. This, all while her significant other continues to show no symptoms.
“He will go for another test this weekend but so far, [it] doesn’t seem like he ever got [COVID-19], which is crazy considering he spent the full day with them in the office, drove home with them in the car and was with them in our house for over 30 minutes,” she wrote. “COVID is weird.”
Marc Rivest, based in Vancouver, said he recently tested positive for COVID-19, and described the symptoms as “extremely mild.”
“I have had colds that have gotten me sicker,” he wrote to CTVNews.ca in an email.
The first day of symptoms included a fever, chills, fatigue and night sweats. By day five, Rivest said he developed a cough, ear congestion and some sneezing as well. By then, his sense of taste began to waver as well.
Despite taking a rapid antigen test and receiving a negative result, meanwhile, Tanya Hickey began experiencing symptoms on Dec. 12, she told CTVNews.ca by email. It started with a pressure in her sinuses before developing into “significant” facial pain, along with earaches and sneezing, she said.
A couple of days after first experiencing symptoms, she said she started to feel feverish and developed a dry cough. These symptoms then subsided for a short period of time before she noticed she couldn’t smell. On Dec. 16, she took a PCR test and preliminary results came back positive, said Hickey.
Since then, her sense of smell has returned and there’s still a slight tingling sensation on her cheeks replacing the facial pain, she said. She isn’t experiencing the same level of congestion either. She plans to take another PCR test and so will with her two children. All three have received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, Hickey said.
“If I hadn’t tested myself regularly, I would have been in the public spreading the virus,” she said.
Beth Denniss also shared her symptoms, which started on Dec. 11, and included a headache, coughing and fatigue. She later developed a fever and body aches as her chest became sore from all the coughing. She noted that she is double vaccinated as well.
“It’s very scary as we follow all the protocols and wash hands regularly,” she wrote in a direct message on Twitter.
WHAT EXPERTS ARE SAYING
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, infectious disease expert and faculty member at the University of Toronto, explained that it’s still too early to know whether Omicron results in more or less severe infections compared to other COVID-19 variants.
“I have no idea,” he told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Monday. “We’ve only known this variant has existed for a month and if we truly want to get a reasonable look at symptom profile, it needs to be done in a much more empiric manner.”
According to one recent study from the United Kingdom, cold-like symptoms are considered more common among people infected with the Omicron variant. The study shows that the top five symptoms of Omicron are a runny nose, headache, fatigue, sneezing and a sore throat. Unlike other strains of the virus, symptoms of fever, cough and loss of smell were not as common, according to the study.
But Bogoch insists what needs to be looked at is not necessarily the types of symptoms, but their severity.
“The individual symptoms are fairly non-descript for respiratory viral infection – fever, cough, shortness of breath, sometimes abdominal pain, sometimes gastrointestinal symptoms, sometimes a rash,” he said. “It’s the degree of severity of symptoms that matters.”
The World Health Organization’s technical lead on COVID-19, Dr. Maria van Kerkhove, provided a recent update on the severity of the Omicron variant, saying “it’s early to tell whether or not Omicron is more or less severe, but we do have some initial reports that it is less severe.”
This is consistent with what some medical experts have noticed in South Africa. Still, other experts such as the head of Ontario’s Science Advisory Table Peter Juni, have said that the idea that Omicron causes milder illness is “a myth.”
Overall Bogoch points to the need for further experiments and analysis of real-world data to properly answer the question. This includes consideration for vulnerable populations, and how Omicron may impact their health differently.
“These are all answerable questions,” said Bogoch. “I think we’ll have some more answers in the days and weeks ahead.”
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Sonja Puzicsonja.puzic@bellmedia.ca
