South African doctor who detected Omicron strain lists symptoms; check it out!

Dr Angelique Coetzee, the head of the South African Medical Association, told Republic Media Network on Thursday that the Omicron strain of COVID-19 has minor symptoms and that infected people do not lose their sense of smell or taste.

“If you want to know if it’s Omicron, if you can’t distinguish it from the Delta variant with the symptoms, you can go with a PCR test. But you can tell with the symptoms,” Dr Coetzee said.

“Delta variant will give you loss of smell and loss of taste with the blocked and stuffy nose, fever, elevated pulse rate, and lower than normal oxygen, whereas in Omicron oxygen stays normal, very very slight increase in pulse rate if any, no loss of smell, only scratchy throat, and generally not feeling well for a day,” Dr Coetzee said when asked how Omicron symptoms differ from the Delta variant.

Omicron symptoms (According to Dr Coetzee)

• Oxygen level stays normal
• Very slight increase in pulse rate if any
• No loss of taste or smell
• Scratchy throat
• Illness for a day

The Union Health Ministry reported two cases of the Omicron strain in India on Thursday, both from Karnataka. The cases were discovered thanks to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium’s genome sequencing work (INSACOG).

Both cases have mild symptoms, according to Lav Agarwal, the Health Ministry’s joint secretary. One of the COVID-19 positive people is a South African, whereas the other is a doctor who has never travelled.