Coronavirus, though viral and deadly, can be quickly seen through symptoms. Some people with COVID-19 do not experience any symptoms or asymptomatic, but most people have the same signs when diagnosed positive. A recent study found out that once you lost your senses like tasting and smelling, there's a huge possibility of you acquiring the disease. Is this true?
Experts: Coronavirus symptoms start when you lose your sense of taste and smell
As reported via the New York Times, two of the most popular and common early signs of a positive COVID-19 patient is when they lost their senses of smell and taste. British doctors of ear, nose and throat recently released a study saying that human senses are the most affected human ability when a person has the disease.
Therefore, if you are feeling a little blue with lost of sense of taste and sense of smell, doctors advised you to self-quarantine for the next two weeks until proven that you are safe from the virus.
"We really want to raise awareness that this is a sign of infection and that anyone who develops loss of sense of smell should self-isolate," Prof. Claire Hopkins, president of the British Rhinological Society, wrote in an email. "It could contribute to slowing transmission and save lives."
Anosmia, the loss of sense of smell, and ageusia, an accompanying loss of sense of taste are the scientific names of these conditions. Hopkins told NYT that Wuhan residents also experienced an inability on their senses when they were diagnosed with the Coronavirus.
More than that, South Korea that also has one of the highest positive cases of COVID-19, reported 30 per cent out of 2,000 patients with the virus experienced anosmia as their major presenting symptom to be admitted in the hospitals.
Even doctors from Italy which now the most-affected numbers with Coronavirus, said that loss of senses were some of their determining factors to admit a person in a hospital and to be tested with the Coronavirus kit.
"Almost everybody who is hospitalized has this same story," said Dr Marco Metra, chief of the cardiology department at the main hospital in Brescia, where 700 of 1,200 inpatients have the Coronavirus. "You ask about the patient's wife or husband. And the patient says, 'My wife has just lost her smell and taste, but otherwise she is well.' So she is likely infected, and she is spreading it with a very mild form."
Health experts warning: Do not use any sinus endoscopy on testing
Though the study that a person with Coronavirus loses their senses is still not verified, health experts warned every hospital in the world to never use any sinus endoscopy when they test a person that lost his senses.
Dr Hopkins and Nirmal Kumar, president of ENT UK, a group representing ear, nose and throat doctors in Britain, said that transmission of the disease could be replicated in the nose and the throat and when that person coughs or sneezes in an exam, the doctor might be exposed with the disease.
