Is it Covid, flu or RSV? A few hallmarks can help distinguish between the illnesses - AOL

Certain hallmarks — either symptoms or how the illness progresses — can help differentiate each virus.

“I don’t think anybody would ever go, ‘Hey, listen, I think you have a virus based on your symptoms,’ and feel confident to say what virus that is,” said Dr.

Flu symptoms tend to develop more suddenly than those of Covid or RSV.

That’s somewhat contrasted by RSV and Covid, where we think of a slow escalation in symptoms,” said Dr.

On average, flu symptoms tend to develop two days after exposure to the virus, whereas RSV symptoms tend to take around four to six days to appear, and Covid's typical incubation is three to four days for the omicron variant.

"If I go to a party and I get symptoms the next day, it’s probably flu because that can be as short as 24 hours’ incubation period," Roberts said.

“In general, if you’re a young healthy adult or you’re not in an extreme of age, and you get pretty severe illness, it’s probably not RSV,” Roberts said.

Disease experts anticipate that Covid cases will climb over the holidays as more people travel and gather indoors.

But it's difficult to determine local Covid transmission levels, since many people use at-home tests.

In the Northeast, Roberts said, “we saw RSV surge over the last one to two months and it’s actually plateaued — which is great news — and then flu, only the past few weeks we’re seeing an exponential rise.".

For some people with Covid, doctors can prescribe Paxlovid

“In this moment where we have a lot of flu, still have a decent amount of RSV, still got a good amount of Covid, the single most important thing people need to do is go get vaccinated,” Jha said at a Tuesday briefing