Can you find out how soon did he get very sick after losing his sense of taste?
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I’ll check into both of those things. Thank you!
And yes I will find out. I’ll try calling him tomorrow.
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Thank you, Mew. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. Not on my watch 
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It looks like the lowest rate of false (PCR SARS-Cov-2 test) negatives (at ~20%) may be around 8 days following symptom onset (increasing to ~60% at 21 days). PCR test swab-samples are taken from nasal (as well as throat tissue) surfaces.
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Common viral infections attack the nose more than the mouth
Loss of smell is common with many viruses, including rhinoviruses, influenza, parainfluenza and coronaviruses, and it is normally attributed to nasal inflammation that restricts airflow.
If your nose is blocked, it is not surprising you are not able to smell much. Typically, the other two systems - taste and oral chemesthesis - are not affected, as a blocked nose does not alter our ability to taste sugar as sweet or feel the burn from a chili pepper. With time, most patients recover their senses of smell, but occasionally some do not. Causes vary, but in some individuals, inflammation from a viral illness appears to permanently damage key structures located around the smell receptors.
SARS-CoV-2 isn’t like those other viruses
Since early spring 2020, firsthand reports have indicated that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, might affect the mouth and nose more severely than the common cold or the flu. Not only were the reports of loss more frequent, but they also differed from what is normally seen.
One British surgeon with COVID-19 posted a video to Twitter showing that he had lost the ability to feel the burn of chilies. Others, like Penn State undergraduate Caela Camazine, reported losing their sense of smell and taste completely without any nasal congestion.
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(April 22, 2020):
- Sovaldi (sofosbuvir), approved as the first all-oral regimen in 2013, can be combined with ribavirin to treat genotypes 2 and 3; add peginterferon alfa and genotypes 1 and 4 can be treated.
- Harvoni (ledipasvir and sofosbuvir) was approved in 2014 as the first all-oral, ribavirin and interferon-free treatment. It can be used for Genotype 1, the most common subgroup, occurring in roughly 70% of infected patients, as well and types 4, 5 and 6. Ribavirin may need to be added in certain patients with liver dysfunction.
- Epclusa (sofosbuvir and velpatasvir) was approved for all 6 major genotypes in June 2016. With advanced liver disease, it is combined with ribavirin.
- Gilead’s Vosevi (sofosbuvir, velpatasvir and voxilaprevir) was given the FDA clearance in July 2017 as a re-treatment option in all 6 genotypes (previously received prior NS5A inhibitor) or for types 1a or 3 (previously received sofosbuvir without an NS5A inhibitor).
- In August of 2017, Mavyret (glecaprevir and pibrentasvir) from AbbVie was also approved for all 6 genotypes.
Source: List of 23 Hepatitis C Medications Compared - Drugs.com
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This app claims to be able to predict SARS-CoV-2 infection with ~80% accuracy.
… the virus seems to target specialized supporting cells that cradle the olfactory sensory neurons. These support cells are covered with a different receptor, the ACE2 receptor, which acts as an entry point for the virus. In contrast, the way SARS-CoV-2 might directly affect taste and chemesthesis remains unknown.
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Regarding results reported (in part) from the above described phone application:
(Science News, May 11, 2020):
A loss of smell and taste may be one of the clearest indicators of whether someone has COVID-19, a new study suggests. … Nearly 65 percent of roughly 6,400 U.K. residents who tested positive for the virus described a loss of taste and smell as a symptom, researchers report May 11 in “Nature Medicine”. And just over 67 percent of the 726 U.S. participants with a positive test also reported losing those senses. Only about 20 percent of all people who tested negative had diminished smell and taste.
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(WebMD, May 14, 2020):
“Smell Diminishes by Day 3 of COVID-19, Study Says”
… characteristics and symptoms of 103 patients in Switzerland who were diagnosed with COVID-19 over six weeks. The patients were asked how many days they had COVID-19 symptoms and also about the timing and severity of lost or reduced sense of smell, along with other symptoms.
At least 61% of the patients reported reduced or lost sense of smell, and the average onset for this was 3.4 days, according to the study. The findings were published online recently in the journal “Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery”. Problems with sense of smell were more likely to occur in younger patients and women.
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(The Guardian, May 18, 2020):
Between 24 and 29 March, data from the app showed that 59% of users who tested positive for Covid-19 experienced loss of smell and taste compared with 18% of those who tested negative. They were three times more likely to have contracted Covid-19 and should self-isolate to reduce the spread of disease, the team said on 1 April.
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(STAT, June 5, 2020):
The results come from a study called RECOVERY, funded by the U.K. government, that sought to randomly assign large numbers of patients to multiple potential treatments in the country’s National Health Service. The goal was to rapidly get answers as to what worked and what didn’t.
“Today’s preliminary results from the RECOVERY trial are quite clear – hydroxychloroquine does not reduce the risk of death among hospitalized patients with this new disease,” University of Oxford epidemiologist Martin Landray, one of the study’s leaders, said in a statement. “This result should change medical practice worldwide and demonstrates the importance of large, randomized trials to inform decisions about both the efficacy and the safety of treatments.”
A total of 1,542 received hydroxychloroquine, and 3,132 received usual care. After 28 days of treatment, 25.7% of those on hydroxychloroquine and 23.5% of those received usual care had died, meaning those on hydroxychloroquine were 11% more likely to die. That difference was not statistically significant. There was “no beneficial effect” on how long patients stayed in the hospital, or on other outcomes.
The results were shared via a press release, which the study’s lead authors shared on Twitter. They have not been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal. The researchers said that full results would be shared as soon as possible. …
… The RECOVERY trial represented an early and large effort at such studies, testing not only hydroxychloroquine but also a pair of HIV drugs, lopinavir and ritonavir, and the steroid dexamethasone. The study was later expanded to also test using plasma from recovered patients to treat those who are still ill.
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(NEJM, June 5, 2020):
“False Negative Tests for SARS-CoV-2 Infection - Challenges and Implications”
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Source: https://thebulletin.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/902px-SARS-CoV-2_yellow.jpg
Video of SARS-CoV-2 images (~40 Seconds)
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Video Link: https://vimeo.com/417208044/758c67edaf
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(June 4, 2020):
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(June 9, 2020):
(Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News, April 24, 2020):
“SARS-CoV-2 Likely Uses Two Nose Cell Types for Entry”
… a collaborative group of researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, University Medical Centre Groningen, and the University Cote d’Azur and CNRS, Nice, have identified two specific cell types in the nose as the likely entry points for the virus.
The work is reported in “Nature Medicine”, in a paper titled “SARS-CoV-2 entry factors are highly expressed in nasal epithelial cells together with innate immune genes.” This is the first publication with the Lung Biological Network, part of an ongoing international effort to use Human Cell Atlas data to understand infection and disease. …
… The current study showed that goblet and ciliated cells in the nose have high levels of the entry proteins that SARS-CoV-2 uses to get into our cells. It further shows that cells in the eye and some other organs also contain the viral-entry proteins. The study also predicts how a key entry protein is regulated with other immune system genes and reveals potential targets for the development of treatments to reduce transmission. …
… ACE2 and TMPRSS2 are two molecules involved in SARS-CoV-2 viral entry. The researchers looked for which individual cells expressed both of two key entry proteins that are used by the COVID-19 virus to infect our cells. The authors write that they “co-detected these transcripts in specific respiratory, corneal, and intestinal epithelial cells, potentially explaining the high efficiency of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. These genes are co-expressed in nasal epithelial cells with genes involved in innate immunity, highlighting the cells’ potential role in initial viral infection, spread, and clearance.” They confirmed the expression of ACE2 in multiple tissues implicated in prior research.
Pics of the virus creep me out. But I suffer from Trypophobia. xD
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OK, I spoke with him today and he had flulike symptoms… lethargy and fever before losing taste and smell. Cough but nothing that became a serious respiratory issue. He tried to get tested, but early on here they wouldn’t unless you showed all the symptoms, so he went home and self isolated. Others at his workplace ended up in ICU. Not sure of their outcomes.
I think if I had it I would be showing more symptoms than I am by now. But the loss of taste kind of spooked me.
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A Foral Phantasm ?
The term trypophobia is believed to have been coined by a participant in an online forum in 2005.[5] The word is from the Greek: τρῦπα, trŷpa , meaning “hole” and φόβος, phóbos , meaning “fear”.[5] Groups on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram exist for self-identified trypophobics to share and discuss images that they say induce the reaction.[5][10]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypophobia#Society_and_culture
I guess that one might prudently refrain from Google Image “Natural Loofah”, then.
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Yeah I can’t look at anything with a pattern of holes. I can’t explain it either, why I have such a reaction. Guess it’s got a name since 2005 eh?
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Looks like we can all thank Louise from Ireland for her wordsmithing - however, for women, it seems the feminine form (“trypaphobia”) would likely be more copacetic.
Louise: … there is nothing preventing us calling our phobia anything we want! …
This voluminous article might possibly interest (if not also perhaps amuse) you ?
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You are not alone ! Every time that I listen to “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, it tends to spontaneously trigger my chronic hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.
Symptoms can include:
- trembling
- sweating
- dizziness
- fainting
- dry mouth
- headache
- trouble breathing
- avoiding reading because of your fear
- feeling distressed over academics or work involving long words
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I’m afraid to look at it. Does it include pictures??? xD
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No. Not a single visual trigger (other than a human female at the top of the article). However, I do see that her knit sweater might possibly redefine the word “groovy” ?
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Too cool @Raven-Knightly 
I have been reading your posts and thanks for putting up cool vids like this one 
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