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. 2020 Dec 13;2(1):100188. doi: 10.1016/j.patter.2020.100188

Table 3.

Summary of Self-reported Symptoms for the COVID-19 (COVID), Non-COVID-19 Flu (NCF), and Pre-COVID-19 Flu (PCF) Cohorts

Symptom Prevalence
Peak Symptom Day Relative to Illness Onset
COVID (n = 230), % NCF (n = 426), % PCF (n = 6,270), % COVID NCF PCF
Cough 84.3 71.6 85.1 5 3 3
Headache 71.3 68.1 74.3 4 3 3
Body muscle ache 66.1 67.1 80.8 4 2 2
Shortness of breath 65.7 24.2 N/A 6 8 N/A
Fatigue 61.7 54.7 70.9 5 3 3
Fever 61.3 62.0 74.6 5 2 2
Chills or shivering 53.5 55.4 69.3 4 3 2
Sore throat 51.7 48.8 61.1 3 2 3
Nasal congestion 49.6 49.3 65.4 5 2 3
Chest pain/pressure 49.6 19.7 N/A 6 2 N/A
Sweats 42.2 47.4 56.3 5 2 2
Anosmia 38.3 15.5 N/A 7 3 N/A
Sneezing 37.0 36.9 48.2 4 2 3

Symptom prevalence refers to the percentage of the cohort reporting the symptom at any time during the ILI event and symptoms are sorted by most (top) to least (bottom) prevalence in the COVID-19 cohort. The day of peak symptom occurrence relative to illness onset corresponds to the maximum of a centered 5-day rolling mean of day-by-day symptom prevalence for each cohort. Some symptoms (i.e., shortness of breath, chest pain/pressure, and anosmia) were only included in the updated survey and therefore are not available for the pre-COVID-19 flu cohort. N/A, not applicable.