Health Protection Operations, Field Services, Contact Tracing Data Management and Surveillance, UK Health Security Agency, London, England.
Epidemiol Infect. 2022 Aug 17;150:e162. doi: 10.1017/S0950268822001297.
Symptoms are currently used as testing indicators for SARS-CoV-2 in England. In this study, we analysed national contact tracing data for England (NHS Test and Trace) for the period 1 December to 28 December 2021 to explore symptom differences between the variants, Delta and Omicron. We found that at least one of the symptoms currently used as indicators (fever, cough and loss of smell and taste) were reported in 61.5% of Omicron cases and 72.2% in Delta cases, suggesting that these symptoms are less predictive of Omicron infections. Nearly 40% of Omicron infections did not report any of the three key indicative symptoms, reinforcing the importance of the entire spectrum of symptoms for targeted testing. After adjusting for potential confounding factors, fever and cough were more commonly associated with Omicron infections compared to Delta, showing the importance of considering age and vaccination status when assessing symptom profiles. Sore throat was also more commonly reported in Omicron infections, and loss of smell and taste more commonly reported in Delta infections. Our study shows the value of continued monitoring of symptoms associated with SARS-CoV-2, as changes may influence the effectiveness of testing policy and case ascertainment approaches.
症状目前被用作英国 SARS-CoV-2 的检测指标。在这项研究中，我们分析了 2021 年 12 月 1 日至 12 月 28 日期间英国的全国接触者追踪数据（NHS Test and Trace），以探索德尔塔和奥密克戎变异株之间的症状差异。我们发现，奥密克戎病例中至少有一种目前用作指标的症状（发热、咳嗽和嗅觉味觉丧失）的报告比例为 61.5%，德尔塔病例中为 72.2%，这表明这些症状对奥密克戎感染的预测性较低。近 40%的奥密克戎感染病例未报告这三种主要症状中的任何一种，这进一步强调了针对特定目标进行检测时，整个症状谱的重要性。在调整了潜在混杂因素后，发热和咳嗽与奥密克戎感染的相关性更高，这表明在评估症状谱时，考虑年龄和疫苗接种状态非常重要。奥密克戎感染中更常报告咽痛，而德尔塔感染中更常报告嗅觉味觉丧失。我们的研究表明，继续监测与 SARS-CoV-2 相关的症状具有重要价值，因为这些变化可能会影响检测政策和病例确定方法的有效性。
