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Among the symptoms of infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the coronavirus disease COVID 19, there may also be a loss of smell and taste. The association of ENT doctors from the United Kingdom points to the new symptoms, as Sky News reports.
First signs of infection
Doctors from many countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and South Korea, report a sharp rise in people complaining of loss of smell and taste, medically called anosmia. According to the BBC, this is not entirely surprising, since anosmia is a common accompanying phenomenon even in ordinary viral illnesses.
Professor Claire Hopkins, president of the British Rhinological Society, therefore calls in an official statement on those who notice such manifestations to isolate themselves at home from the outside and thus slow the spread of the disease. Although doctors only have a limited amount of data so far, they consider it important to draw attention to these symptoms.
According to the association, asymptomatic patients may suffer loss of smell and taste, that is those patients who, when infected, do not feel common symptoms such as fever, shortness of breath or cough.
Such patients can be so-called hidden carriers of the disease. Because they do not experience any of the usual symptoms, while moving outside their homes they can infect other people without being aware of it.
The same symptoms can also affect allergy sufferers or occur with a common inflammation of the respiratory tract and sinuses.
Loss of smell and taste are not yet “official” symptoms of the coronavirus COVID 19, i.e. they do not carry as much weight as the already known and expert-confirmed symptoms of fever or cough.
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