Texas News Ask a doctor: How to tell COVID-19 from cedar fever, and substitutes for an N95 mask KWBU | By Texas Standard Published January 3, 2022 at 10:23 AM CST Twitter LinkedIn Email Listen • 6:01 Tina Franklin/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) Omicron generally causes less severe symptoms than previous coronavirus variants, but it spreads more easily.