Till now we have been familiar with the basic symptoms of a COVID-19 infection – fever, cough, tiredness, and difficulty in breathing.
But there is a new and unexpected symptom being reported by patients from all over the world – people are losing their sense of smell, and it’s all too disconcerting.
People are suddenly losing their sense of smell and taste
In recent events, a British citizen reported that she had suddenly lost her sense of smell, and was feeling some “weird head rushes.” Although she didn’t have the basic and common symptoms such as fever and cough – so she was not tested for Coronavirus infection. Later, her doctor examined her and declared that she was COVID-19 position.
You’d be unable to smell even if your nose is not blocked
Another surprising thing about this symptom is that people are losing the ability to smell even though their noses are not blocked like how it happens in common cold.
There have not been any official declaration about this yet, but Doctors have independently declared that losing the sense of smell is one of the symptoms of Coronavirus – although we don’t know how many people are facing this problem globally.
For many people, the smell loss is permanent
Doctors say that the reason by loss of smell is usually an infection in the upper respiratory tract. In common cases, these would be viruses for common cold and influenza where people stop smelling for a few days, and then the sense returns within a few days.
For most people, the sense of smell hasn’t returned even after a month. Data is still being gathered on whether this loss of smell will be permanent or temporary?
It is being suspected that people infected with COVID-19 can lose their sense of smell forever, but the data is not complete yet:
“For a sense of smell to return, it might take days, it might take weeks, sometimes it even takes months to years on rare occasions. Sometimes it’s gradual, sometimes it is all at once and we don’t really know why that is.”
Sense of smell is helpful in tasting and cooking of food, even checking the food quality
Sense of smell is much more essential than we realize: when we eat something, the taste and flavour that we experience are combined by mixing the smell of the food along with the sensation it creates on your tongue. After losing the sense of smell, people lose their taste for food as well.
One of the people who tested positive, was commenting:
“Eating anything was most unpleasant, even repellent because I couldn’t be sure that what I was eating was actually food.”
It is a far more common symptom than fever – for COVID-19
There are doctors who are rallying with WHO to get it recognized as one of prime symptoms of a Coronavirus infection – saying that losing sense of smell has been far too common in the patients who were tested positive.
A report by King’s College, London states that losing sense of smell or even taste is a powerful indicator of COVID-19 infection. The report cites a study that was done on 400,000 people between March 24th-29th, it was found that 18% people had lost their sense of smell, while only 10.5% had fever.
Final conclusion from doctors is that losing your sense of smell is not only a stronger but also a more tangible symptoms that you might have a Coronavirus infection.
All Featured Images Courtesy: NBC