Spectrum News: Differentiating the Symptoms of COVID-19 and Asthma

Is it allergies or could your breathing troubles be symptoms of COVID-19? Brandi Ewing, director of respiratory services at St. Peter’s Health Partners, spoke to Spectrum News about how to tell the difference between asthma and COVID-19.

From the story:

“There’s no direct correlation or evidence at this time to show that patients with asthma have a higher incidence of contracting coronavirus however if they do in fact get it, they do substantially, increase their risk of complications,” said Brandi Ewing, the director of Respiratory Services at St. Peters Health Partners.

Ewing says asthma suffers need to take note of their symptoms to decide whether it’s seasonal allergies or possibly COVID-19.

“One of the big differences between normal asthma worsening symptoms and coronavirus is if you’ve had that fever,” said Ewing. “A lot of times with seasonal allergies– asthma — you’ll get sneezing, watery eyes and things like that, you don’t get that with coronavirus, but you do get coughing, which is in asthma and coronavirus, so sometimes it can be a little bit hard to distinguish.”

Which is why Ewing says if you’re asthmatic and have a fever, or have come into contact with someone who has coronavirus, you should immediately get in touch with your health care provider, to try to decide the best course of action to prevent your symptoms from getting worse and she recommends doing so without leaving your house.

“There’s an awful lot of health care providers who are providing Telehealth visits right now and sometimes it’s either low co-pay or in some instances no co-pay at all, so definitely taking advantage of that rather than waiting and it’s a little too late and you’ve gotten substantially worse,” Ewing said.

Click here to watch Spectrum’s report.