People with COVID-19 have had a wide range of symptoms reported – ranging from mild symptoms to severe illness. These symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure to the virus:

• Fever

• Cough

• New loss of taste or smell

In addition, patients may experience:

• Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing

• Chills

• Repeated shaking with chills

• Muscle pain

• Headache

• Diarrhoea

• Conjunctivitis

• A rash on skin, or discolouration of fingers or toes

Serious symptoms:

• difficulty breathing or shortness of breath

• chest pain or pressure

• loss of speech or movement

Seek immediate medical attention if you have serious symptoms.

• COVID-19 typically causes flu-like symptoms including a fever and cough. In some patients - particularly the elderly and others with other chronic health conditions - these symptoms can develop into pneumonia, with chest tightness, chest pain, and shortness of breath. It seems to start with a fever, followed by a dry cough. After a week, it can lead to shortness of breath, with about 20% of patients requiring hospital treatment.

Notably, the COVID-19 infection rarely seems to cause a runny nose, sneezing, or sore throat (these symptoms have been observed in only about 5% of patients). Sore throat, sneezing, and stuffy nose are most often signs of a cold.

• a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)

• Pre-existing illnesses that put patients at higher risk for developing more serious complications from COVID-19 illness are:

• cardiovascular disease
• diabetes
• chronic respiratory disease
• hypertension

Recently published information has confirmed that diabetes is associated with a significantly increased risk of serious complications

An individual who has been infected can pass the infection on to others before their symptoms appear. They may not know they have been infected. That is why it is important to maintain a social distance of two metres from people who are not in your household.

If you think you could have a covid-19 infection:

Stay at home. In the first instance use the 111 online service https://111.nhs.uk/covid-19/

Telephones are likely to be very busy so only call 111 if you cannot get help online

Do not go to places like a GP surgery, pharmacy or hospital if you think you might have coronavirus. - the reason for this is to try and reduce the risk of the surgery becoming contaminated with the infection. If that happens, the surgery would have to close until a deep clean has been completed. Patients showing symptoms who contact 111 will be assessed by a Covid-19 team and given an appropriate plan which could be:

(1) Stay At home or (2) 999 ambulance or (3) get tested, see https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/testing-for-coronavirus/ask-for-a-test-to-checkif-you-have-coronavirus or (4) contact the GP Surgery if they need some sort of further medical advice/or review.

The GP surgery will become involved when they receive a message from 111 after the patient is advised to contact their GP. The surgery will then carry out their own assessment and if needed that patient will come into the HOT ROOM at Hall Grove Surgery for examination or be given further advice over the phone.

If a patient rings the surgery with some respiratory symptoms (so could be a carrier of COVID-19) they will again be assessed over the phone by the GP at the surgery and if clinically needed will be brought to the Hot Room. The purpose of this is to try and keep Hall Grove as clean as possible so as not to contaminate the site in the interests of other patients.