What is a ‘continuous’ cough?

[CobaltRose96]

Hi all. Over the past couple of days I’ve developed a cough/tickly throat. I also had a sore throat about a week ago that went after a day or so. I feel fine otherwise (aside from a headache), no fever or shortness of breath. I’ve looked on the NHS website for the definition of a continuous cough, and apparently it’s either coughing a lot for an hour or more (doesn’t apply to me), or three or more coughing spells in 24 hours. What is a coughing ‘spell’? Is it coughing a couple of times? Numerous times? Because I have coughed more than 3 times in 24 hours, but I wouldn’t call them coughing ‘spells’.

Should I still self isolate? I’m sincerely hoping it’s just hayfever and not the dreaded virus I’ve only left the house once in the past 3 weeks anyway, and that was to go shopping. I have a young child but thankfully she’s not showing any signs yet. Really worried!

Thank you

I agree there really haven't been any good descriptions of this apparently all-important symptom, as I was looking when my son had a bit of a cough this week.
Does it feel different to anything you've ever had before?
A lot of people describing their illness with suspected COVID 19, eg on LBC radio, have said it felt different from anything they'd previously known. If your symptoms feel just like colds you've had before, I'd be cautiously optimistic that that's what it was, and when you do go out, continue to behave as if you've got it, just in case.

TBH it doesn't sound much like the virus. I read the cough definition early last week because I had a slight tickly cough, but I had just had a mild cold (runny nose and sneezing) so almost certainly just the aftermath of that. I certainly wasn't coughing for an hour - just the odd cough here and there and it disappeared in a day or so.

I