Fever isn’t a defining symptom of Covid. Initially, it was believed that anyone with an active infection would have a fever. That turned out to be wrong, and it led to a lot of people being denied tests and treatment in the early phase of the pandemic because they had Covid byt (I was one of them). People would go out in public with other symptoms because they assumed the absence of a fever meant it definitely wasn’t Covid. So that might be the change in understanding you’ve heard about.

Fever is still a common symptom of Covid. If you have a fever, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, loss of smell or taste, and/or gastrointestinal symptoms, you may have Covid and you should act as though you are infectious.