COVID-19 can cause a variety of symptoms such as fever, cough and problems with the senses of taste and smell. When the illness is severe, it can lead to pneumonia and affect other organs such as the heart, blood vessels, nervous system or kidneys. COVID-19 can also be a danger to mental health.

How the illness is treated depends on how it is expressed in each individual case. If the illness is mild, it is usually sufficient to rest and treat the individual symptoms, cough and fever for instance, as necessary. For patients who are at increased risk of becoming severely ill, antiviral treatment early on in the illness can also be helpful.

If you become infected, it’s important that you isolate at home to avoid infecting anyone else if at all possible.

When the illness is more serious, in-patient treatment in hospital is necessary. Many of the hospitalized patients need oxygen and some need mechanical ventilation.

A number of different medications are available to prevent and treat serious illness. Some are given as tablets while others are administered in the form of infusions into a vein.

Further information about treatment is available at the Federal Health Ministry’s website gesund.bund.de.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) provides an overview of the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 which is updated regularly.

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