Note: Your progress in watching these videos WILL NOT be tracked. These training videos are the same videos you will experience when you take the full Coronavirus COVID-19 Level 2 (VTQ) program. You may begin the training for free at any time to start officially tracking your progress toward your certificate of completion.
A lot is still to be learnt about Coronavirus and COVID 19 but the basic symptoms are known. The World Health Organisation currently state that the incubation period is up to 14 days but sometimes it could be longer, even up to 24 days, but typically symptoms show in about 5 days.
The World Health Organisation’s data based on 44,000 patients with the virus, 81% developed mild symptoms, 14% developed severe symptoms and 5% became critically ill. The death rate stated by the World Health Organisation appears to be between 1 and 2% but the current initial figures are obviously unreliable, given that is a currently changing situation. That said WHO say that about 80% of people recover without medical treatment and some people become infected but they do not develop any symptoms or feel unwell.
The main three symptoms of coronavirus are:
- a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back. It is not essential to measure your temperature to decide you have a high temperature.
- a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
- a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you've noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal
Most people but not all people with coronavirus have at least 1 of these symptoms.
Other symptoms are a headache, shortness of breath, tiredness, nasal congestion, sore throat, diarrhoea, nasal congestion, muscle aches, nausea and vomiting. Symptoms often show as mild and begin gradually.
Some people have the virus but they show no symptoms at all but they can still spread the virus without knowing it.
If you are in a high-risk group with existing medical conditions or the elderly, or if the person develops a fever, cough and breathing difficulties you should seek medical attention by phoning the medical services rather than going to hospitals or medical centres, where there is a risk that you will spread the virus to others.
