Double-jabbed Brits are reporting an unexpected symptom after catching Covid.
The main indicators of the disease are still loss of smell, persistent cough, and fever.
But people who have been vaccinated are now more likely to report sneezing as a coronavirus symptom than those yet to get jabbed.
For the unvaccinated, sneezing is ‘much more likely’ to be a sign of a cold, or allergy such as hay fever, according to King’s College London (KCL) researchers.
They said: ‘Vaccinated people experience the same kinds of symptoms as unvaccinated people do, but their illness is milder and shorter.
‘Interestingly, our data shows that people who had been vaccinated and then tested positive for Covid-19 were more likely to report sneezing as a symptom compared with those without a jab.
‘This suggests that sneezing a lot with no explanation after you’ve been vaccinated could be a sign of Covid.’
The experts added that sneezing is a ‘key way’ of spreading the virus and people should make sure they don’t spread droplets in public.
‘Try to cover all coughs and sneezes with tissue or the inside of your elbow to minimise the spread of droplets,’ they said.
‘Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth until you wash your hands.’
KCL uses its Covid symptom app to ask millions of users how they are feeling and to log tests they’ve taken.
It aims to build up a ‘clearer picture’ of the effects of Covid and consistently estimates far higher numbers of infections than official UK government figures.
In the latest infections report by the app, it found there were 62,372 daily new cases of symptomatic Covid in the UK.
The majority of these were among unvaccinated people, who made up 37,216 of cases.
More than 84 million vaccines have so far been administered across the UK, including almost 38 million second doses.
This means 88.2% of the population has built up some protection against Covid, while 70.8% are fully inoculated.
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