As the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage, the news feeds are filled with images of people in ventilators as hospital staff struggle to save their lives.
While these images may be true, what many people don’t realize is that not everyone who gets COVID-19 ends up hospitalized.
There are those cases that only present mild or even no symptoms at all. In these cases, they stay quarantined at home in order to avoid infecting others.
Now, these people have been taking video clips of themselves to demonstrate just how much the coronavirus affects one’s sense of taste and smell. They can be seen taking in strong flavors from whiskeys, mustards, lemons, and whiskeys without batting an eyelash.
Former Soccer Am presenter Andy Goldstein shared one video on Twitter demonstrating this fact.
In the clip, the 46-year-old says: “I just thought I’d show you how bad my ‘I don’t have any smell or taste’ scenario is, because I think I had ‘it’. I don’t know if I did but two weeks ago I had some mild symptoms, a cough, a temperature, a headache, and that all went after about three or four days.
“But last Wednesday, all of a sudden I went ‘I can’t smell anything, I can’t taste anything.'”
He then proceeds to cut a lemon and an onion then places them in his mouth before finally saying he could taste “nothing.”
But he wasn’t done and washed everything down with a shot of vinegar without changing expression.
Now, other people in the comments have chimed in claiming that it’s the same with them.
Amy Mitchell eventually comes up with a clip of her own, showing herself eating not just lemon and onion but also adds a dollop of hot sauce, a tequila shot, a big helping of vinegar, some whiskey, all rounded off with a shot of vodka.
And guess what? Nothing.
Adam White started his own sensory experiment when he found his sense of smell gone.
He mixed in some mustard, chili pickle, with some strong whiskey, and didn’t notice anything, too.
Charlotte and Billy from @AnotherRhythmUK also got the same results.
Earlier this week, for “day 12 of not smelling or tasting anything,” Gary Lineker’s son George also recorded himself chugging down a glass of vinegar.
The British Association of Otorhinolaryngology has warned that a loss of taste and smell may indicate that one has the coronavirus even if the other common symptoms may be absent.
Among the “most common symptoms” identified by the NHS are continuous cough and/or high temperature.
But Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said during the April 2 coronavirus press briefing that people should “take into account” losing one’s sense of taste or smell.
Vallance said: “The symptoms that the Chief Medical Officer has outlined – and the ones that you should self-isolate on – are a persistent new cough or fever.
“Loss of taste and smell is something that can happen with other respiratory viruses.
“It does seem to be a feature of this from what people are reporting and it is something that people should take into account as they think about their symptoms.
“I think it’s for the Chief Medical Officer to decide at what point, if any, diagnostic change takes place in terms of self-isolation.
“Those symptoms we are learning about for this disease are the ones that will get more information on over time but a new cough or fever captures the vast majority of people with this illness.”
Replaced!