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A close-up view of a woman sneezing. (credit:
Getty | David Jones
)
As people build up immunity to SARS-CoV-2 through vaccines, boosters, and infections, the most commonly reported symptoms of COVID-19 have shifted, making the deadly pandemic infection more difficult for many people to distinguish from standard cold-weather viruses.
That's according to
recent survey data
collected in the ZOE COVID Study, an app-based study with over 4 million users that was created by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University, King's College London, and the health science company, ZOE.
Since COVID-19 emerged, the
common symptoms
that have topped standard lists include
fever, chills, a persistent cough, and shortness of breath
. As the virus spread around the planet, loss of taste and smell were also reported as telltale signs. But these days, those symptoms are almost completely absent from the top five.