Nine new Covid-19 symptoms added to official list

The official list of Covid symptoms has been expanded to include another nine signs of a coronavirus infection.

The UK Health Security Agency’s updated guidance now lists symptoms including a sore throat, muscle pains and diarrhoea.

The move comes more than two years into the pandemic, and just days after free testing ended in England.

However, the NHS cautions that many of the new symptoms “are very similar” to those for colds and flu.

The original signs of a Covid infection that were recognised in the UK were:

It was known from the early days of the pandemic that this trio was just the tip of the iceberg. The World Health Organization and other countries, including the US, have used a longer list of symptoms for some time.

However, there has been debate in the UK about precisely which symptoms should be recognised and qualify somebody for a Covid test.

A headache is a known symptom of Covid, but you might not want to test everybody with one, as there are so many other causes.

Fever, cough or loss of sense of smell or taste were settled on, because they were either present in most Covid cases or almost exclusively caused by the virus.