A recent study finds that the ordinary symptoms of COVID-19 vary depending on whether an individual is fully vaccinated and how many doses of the vaccine they receive.
The study conducted by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, King’s College London and Stanford University School of Medicine, found that symptoms being reported in the health app ZOE are similar among vaccinated and unvaccinated people but they differ in severity and length.
The study found that the four most common symptoms are sore throat, runny nose, persistent cough, and headache. The fifth symptom varies. For the fully vaccinated it’s blocked nose, among the partially vaccinated, it’s sneezing, and for unvaccinated individuals it’s fever.
Below is a table of symptoms ranked from 1-5 based on how prevalent each symptom is within a particular group depending on vaccination status.
| Fully Vaccinated | Partially vaccinated | Unvaccinated |
| Sore Throat | Headache | Headache |
| Runny Nose | Runny Nose | Sore Throat |
| Blocked Nose | Sore Throat | Runny Nose |
| Persistent Cough | Sneezing | Fever |
| Headache | Persistent Cough | Persistent Cough |
The study finds that symptoms that are usually associated with a COVID-19 infection during the early days of the pandemic, such as loss of smell, shortness of breath and fever rank lower down on the list of symptoms among vaccinated people. Researchers also noted that vaccinated individuals who later tested positive for COVID were more likely to report sneezing than someone who did not get vaccinated.
There are some limitations with the study, chief among them being that it did not take into account the variants of the COVID virus. This could explain why early symptoms of the virus i.e. SOB and loss of smell are much less prevalent.
