Sore Throat, Strep Throat, or COVID-19? How to Tell

Your throat feels a little bit sore. Maybe it hurts when you try to swallow. Do you have strep throat or COVID-19, or is it just a random sore throat?

The answer depends on a lot of factors. The only way to know for certain is to get tested. We’re available for walk-in appointments, so getting tested is easy. 

Here at Cermak Immediate Care, our providers have insight on how to know which illness you might have — a sore throat, strep throat, or COVID-19. 

Overlapping and differing symptoms

While these illnesses have some overlapping symptoms, there are a few differences to recognize. In addition to a sore throat, COVID-19 can have symptoms, such as:

• Fever
• Body aches
• Loss of taste or smell
• Respiratory illness, such as a chronic cough

Strep throat can also present with fever and body aches like COVID-19. However, it can have additional symptoms like:

• Swollen, red tonsils, sometimes with white patches or streaks of pus
• Small red spots at the back of the roof of the mouth
• Enlarged, tender lymph nodes in your neck
• Rash
• Nausea or vomiting (especially in younger children)

If you have a sore throat and it doesn’t go away, getting tested for COVID-19 or strep can determine what condition you have. 

Why you shouldn’t ignore symptoms of strep

While both COVID-19 and a cold will eventually go away on their own, strep can be more serious if you ignore it. Failure to treat its symptoms with antibiotics can lead to the following complications:

• Ear infections
• Kidney infections, including glomerulonephritis
• Abscesses that form in your tonsils
• Scarlet fever
• Rheumatic fever
• Streptococcal toxic shock syndrome

All of these symptoms can be prevented when treating strep throat with antibiotics as soon as possible. While you’ll generally feel better within about 24 hours of starting treatment, you’ll need to take the full course as prescribed. Antibiotic resistance can develop if you only take a partial course of treatment.

The truth about COVID-19

Maybe you think you’ve escaped COVID-19, whether you already had it or not. But the truth is that the virus is still going around, especially during the winter months. You can be reinfected with the virus that causes COVID-19 at any time, even multiple times.

If you have symptoms, the first thing you should do is take a test. You can take an antigen test at home, but you can also get a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test at our office. The results take about three days to come in.

If you know that you’ve been exposed to COVID-19, and your home test comes back negative, come in for a PCR test, which may work better to detect the virus.

COVID-19 has changed

If you’re looking for the “old” symptoms of COVID-19, it’s important to know that new infections may have different symptoms.

The new symptoms of COVID-19 often include:

• Sore throat (especially in the early stages of the infection)
• Cough
• Runny nose
• Headache
• Muscle aches

Many of these symptoms are manageable for most people with over-the-counter pain relievers like acetaminophen (Tylenol®) or ibuprofen (Advil®, Motrin®). It’s rare to have serious complications that require hospitalization, although older people and those who haven’t been vaccinated are still at higher risk.

If you have a sore throat, you should only wait a couple of days before coming in to see us. Walk-ins are welcome at Cermak Immediate Care or feel free to request an appointment online at the location nearest you.