Telling the Difference

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Anchor lead: How can you tell if you’ve got Covid, the flu, or both? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Think you might have Covid-19, or maybe the flu? This year it’s important to seek medical care so you can be tested. That’s according to Aaron Milstone, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins.

Milstone: People who have either Covid-19 or the influenza virus can have similar symptoms. Fever, cough, gastrointestinal symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea, muscle aches, sore throat. There are some symptoms that seem to be more common with Covid-19: the loss or inability to smell or taste. People who get sicker with Covid-19 can also develop difficulty breathing. So I think the take home is that it would be really important for people to seek care and get tested to identify which virus they have.  :30

Milstone says that treatment and management strategies for Covid-19 and the flu differ in some ways, so knowing which one you have can impact medications that may be prescribed as well as symptoms you may want to watch out for. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.