Is it COVID-19 or hayfever? What your springtime symptoms mean

It is hayfever season and as people reach for their antihistamines, COVID anxiety is generating additional fears over what their symptoms could really mean.

COVID-19 and hayfever do share some common symptoms, though it's not a perfect crossover, as SA Health showed in a tweet.

And symptoms for either condition can vary from mild to severe, depending on the person.

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The symptoms you might suffer from either COVID-19 or hayfever include:

• Coughing
• Tiredness and fatigue
• A runny or blocked nose
• A headache
• Shortness of breath, among asthma sufferers

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COVID-19, as we've learned in the past two years, has a number of other symptoms too - and these can't be linked to hayfever:

• Fever or chills
• The loss of taste and smell
• Nausea, vomiting or diarrhoea.
• Muscle or joint pain
• Loss of appetite
• Sore throat

And hayfever-exclusive symptoms include:

• Watering and itching eyes
• An itchy nose
• Sneezing

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Health advice for who should get tested for COVID-19 has varied during the pandemic.

In areas with emerging uncontrolled outbreaks, people have sometimes been urged to not get tested unless they have been to an exposure site.

However, the most consistent advice has been to get tested if you start suffering from COVID-19 systems.

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And in locked-down areas such as New South Wales and Victoria, where cases continue to rise, people are urged to come forward even with the mildest of symptoms.