Loss of smell and taste may be the only accurate symptom of the coronavirus COVID-19. A large-scale study indicates that 60% of patients with a confirmed diagnosis had a sense of smell.
A team of scientists from King’s College London using the Covid Symptom Tracker app collected and analyzed data from more than 400,000 SARS-CoV-2 infected people who developed one or more symptoms. As it turned out, 59% of those diagnosed with COVID-19 lost their taste and smell. This was reported by CNBC.
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According to scientists, loss of smell can be a more accurate sign of COVID-19 than fever. They recommend including this indicator in the list of coronavirus symptoms.
Recall that the WHO refers to the symptoms of coronavirus fever, dry cough and muscle pain.
According to our data, in combination with other symptoms, people who have lost their taste and smell are three times more likely to become infected with COVID-19, and therefore should be self-insulating for seven days to reduce the spread of this disease,
– said the author of the study and Professor Tim Spector.
These findings are confirmed by a recent study by British ENT specialists. They found that a third of South Korean patients with a positive coronavirus test had problems with smell and taste. Experts believe that problems with smell and taste may be the only symptom of coronavirus primarily in young people.
Symptoms of Coronavirus / Channel 24 Infographic
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