Something I'm worrying about this winter (COVID)

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What I'm worrying about is the autumn and winter coming. Sometimes when the weather is really cold I feel peculiar, like my sinuses feel all sore and dry and I get headaches and I get more tired than usual and have other "traits" of a cold or flu but don't actually have a cold or flu.
I usually get this feeling between September and January, once the spring starts setting in I just start getting hay fever, which I can always differentiate from a cold, so it's OK.
But this effect I get during the autumn and the winter is different, and I often wonder if I'm getting a cold or if it's just the cold weather. This autumn is the first autumn where I've known COVID and so this year I'm going to be paranoid each time I feel any discomfort in my body that are similar to the onset symptoms of cold and flu, and I'm not going to know if it might be COVID or not unless I get tested every week or something, which I doubt I'll be able to do. But I can't just not go to work for 14 days each time I am having a reaction to the dry, cold air of winter.

I'm not too paranoid about getting COVID, I'm just worried about what to do if I feel like I might be coming down with a virus even if it is just the cold weather. Everybody reacts to COVID differently and everyone has different symptoms. What does one do when their sinuses and throat play up in the winter weather during a COVID crisis?

I'm not sure I can give you a good answer but I just want to say: I feel you

I recommend that you buy two items. First an accurate Temperature/Humidity meter. There run around $10-$15. During the winter months when humidity drops, it is important to maintain your indoor relative humidity levels above 40%. Second I recommend you buy a humidifier to inject humidity into your indoor environment.

It’s the cold weather.

I always seem to “have a cold” from November to May.

I’m no expert, but it seems to me like this is more upper respiratory symptoms, while COVID-19 is a lower respiratory disease. If you don’t have any cough, difficulty breathing, or high fever, I think you’re probably okay, or at least if it was COVID, it would only be a mild case.

I'm not worried too much about getting it, I just don't want to go to work with it and pass it around.

Some people get COVID but don't suffer the typical symptoms. I know a girl who got tested positive but all she had was a headache, no cough or breathing difficulties. So she went about her normal routine and went to work, not knowing she had the COVID until she was tested (she's a nurse so she has to be tested every 2 weeks).

The guidance we have been told, and that we screen people for, is that if you or anyone in your household has a fever (feels hot to the touch or over 38c if you have a thermometer) and/or a new continuous cough (whether it's dry or productive) and/or a loss of, or change in sense of smell or taste you should self isolate and get tested. I have wondered if they should be testing people showing the other symptoms than can be connected, given you can even be asymptomatic and still be infectious, but they aren't right now. Guessing it just wouldn't be practical to mass test the whole population.

If you’re really worried you can always get a test. Then you’ll know

I don't think you can just because you want one in the UK, Alex. Folk only get tested if they or someone in their household has symptoms. Certainly workplaces are testing regularly though I think.

If it were that simple in the UK to just get a test each time I cough then I wouldn't have needed to start this thread...