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Loss of smell is a Covid19 symptom. That's a test. Everyone should do that test
There is strong evidence that loss of sense of smell is a common (and peculiar) symptom of Covid-19. Partial information is worth something. Everyone in the world should be testing their sense of smell, at least daily, and we should be recording the results somewhere. Otherwise we are just throwing enormous amounts of information away.
At the moment it's just: "Some people who test positive report a loss of smell. That's interesting. Maybe we should look into it."
- pesfandiar 7y ago"Partial information is worth something" I disagree. A false negative in a mild case could be dangerous if someone assumes no COVID-19 and socially interacts with vulnerable people. A false positive might give a vulnerable person the courage to forgo social distancing and actually contract it.
- kleer001 7y ago> A false positive might give a vulnerable person the courage to forgo social distancing and actually contract it. What? If they think that then they're not thinking it through all the way. They may still get it in the future from some source. Also who gets courage to expose themselves to a contagion?
- pesfandiar 7y agoMaybe I wasn't clear. What if you have mild symptoms including loss of olfactory sense, and in a week or two assume you're relatively immune based on this logic? There might be people who may not observe precautions as much (washing hands, social distancing, etc.) if they think they've already contracted the virus and survived.
- pjdorrell 7y agoIf the number of lives saved by making best use of partial information exceeds the number of lives lost because of people who fail to understand the concept, then that's a net benefit.