Covid: ‘Major’ symptoms include hyposmia or reduced sense of smell
While vaccines are the biggest weapon against which you can add to your defense arsenal Covid, they are not a silver bullet. Even patients with a sting can still contract the disease and suffer from symptoms. The latest reports indicate that cases are on the rise again, with new “peak” symptoms including hyposmia. Here’s how to spot it.
Speaking on the Zoe YouTube channel, Professor Tim Spector said: “Covid is back in the news again as rates rise and we are now above 200,000 [cases]. That’s about 36 percent more than two weeks ago, which is quite a lot.
“About one in 27 people still have it Covid and we have a way to go before we get back to them [numbers] we saw in the summer.
“The Omicron variant BA.5 is still the most common. There are others nearby, but they haven’t taken over.”
With this dominant strain increasing the number of cases in the UK, symptoms still include the usual suspects such as a sore throat, runny nose and headache.
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However, the latest reports from The Zoe Covid Study appwhich follows the dominant Covid symptoms through patient reports, added altered sense of smell to their list of “major” signs to look out for.
Hyposmia, or reduced ability to smell, is one of the symptoms you may experience.
According to Researchpublished in the journal HNO, about 31 percent of patients experiencing a distorted sense of smell also suffered from rhinitis, which describes chronic sneezing or a stuffy, runny nose.
The study even reported that hyposmia was the main or only symptom in two of their subjects.
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In addition to reducing your ability to smell, Covid patients often report parosmia, where the smell of a familiar object changes to something unpleasant, or phantosmia, where you can smell something that isn’t there.
Despite Covid still causing symptoms that target your nose, “traditional” loss of smell is much “less common”, says Zoe.
Although this pesky sign used to be the main indicator of Covid, loss of smell is now 14th on the list of most prevalent signs.
Patients suffering from the virus tend to report changes in smell rather than complete loss of smell.
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This list of symptoms is based on the most recent data from the 30 days prior to December 5th, using contributor reports from Zoe with a positive Covid tests.
The health study explains: “We used to report the first five symptoms. But over time we have seen that they often change.
“So now we report the first 10 symptoms, which remain more stable.
“The order of these symptoms is based on contributor reports in the app and does not take into account which variant caused the infection or any demographics.”
Although by law there is no need for self-isolation when you have the virus, NHS continues to ask people to stay home and avoid contact with others when they are infected.
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