A common Omicron symptom is affecting men and women differently as infection rates rise in the UK.
40% of women are suffering with fatigue as a result of contracting the Omicron variant of Covid-19 while just a third of men are affected, new research from Web MD suggests.
Covid infections continue to rise across the UK, driven by the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the virus.
New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that 2.7 million people in private households are estimated to have had Covid-19 last week, up 18% from 2.3 million the previous week.
Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said the UK was now in “a substantial wave of infection” which underlines that coronavirus “is not just a problem in winter”.
Generally, people are reporting milder reactions to the virus however many patients have noticed they are different to Alpha, Beta and Delta.
The five distinct symptoms of Omicron are a scratchy throat, a dry cough, extreme tiredness, mild muscle aches and night sweats.
Official NHS Covid symptoms to look out for
Infectious disease expert Dr Sachin Nagrani said: "As an acute symptom, while new fatigue could be an early marker of a COVID-19 infection, the fatigue could easily be due to another cause.
"It's also important to remember that many cases of Covid-19 have no symptoms at all, which is one reason it has continued to spread so easily."
The latest variant which sparked a return of stricter regulations across the UK towards the end of 2021 now seems to be under control as restrictions begin to be eased across the UK.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here