Fact vs. fiction: What are the actual symptoms of coronavirus?
Fox News medical contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat explains.
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Fox News medical contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat appeared on "Fox & Friends First" Monday to highlight the facts and fiction pertaining to information being spread about the coronavirus.
Factor or fiction: “If you hold your breath for 10 seconds, you don’t have coronavirus.”
Fiction: "This is not a test of exclusion. The best way to actually diagnose coronavirus is by physical examination, [looking at the patient's] history; we can do swabs, we can do blood testing, and we can even do imaging — but holding your breath does not exclude or include coronavirus."
Nesheiwat also noted that holding one's breath can be dangerous for some people.
Fact or fiction: "Skin rashes could be a potential sign of coronavirus."
Fact: Nesheiwat said that a small study that came out of Italy showed that out of 150 people, 20 percent had a skin rash that was associated with their coronavirus diagnosis.
“This can happen and it can be treated as well. We can treat the symptoms,” Nesheiwat said.
Fact or fiction: "COVID-19 is just like the flu."
Nesheiwat said that this statement is both “true and false” because some of the symptoms of the flu and coronavirus can overlap; however, the coronavirus is more severe and deadly.
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“Body aches, fever, chills, those can be similar, but really what I am seeing with coronavirus is you get a lot more chest pain and difficulty breathing which is why I think the coronavirus is definitely much worse and deadlier,” she said.
Fact or fiction: "If you have a runny nose, it is just a cold."
Nesheiwat said that this can be true, given that some strains of the coronavirus cause a “runny nose.”
Fact or fiction: "If you have coronavirus, you’ll get pneumonia.”
Fiction: "You can have coronavirus and not have pneumonia. Some people just have chills or body aches or headaches or they lose a sense of smell and taste so you do not necessarily have to develop pneumonia if you are diagnosed with coronavirus."
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Fact or fiction: "By the time a person with coronavirus is hospitalized, their lungs will have experienced fibrosis."
Fiction: “Not necessarily true,” Nesheiwat said, adding that fibrosis, the scarring of the lungs, can happen over time.
“Just because you are hospitalized, doesn’t mean you will develop fibrosis and scarred tissue of the lungs,” she said.
The death toll in the U.S. climbed past 41,000, with more than 746,000 confirmed infections, while the global case count has passed 2.38 million, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University of national health reports. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said the continent now has seen over 1 million confirmed cases and almost 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus.
Fox Business' Hillary Vaughn and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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