Did you lose your sense of smell or taste? I have dozens of friends who report a terrible cold with many of these symptoms during the Dec19-Jan20 time period.

Did you lose your sense of smell or taste? I have dozens of friends who report a terrible cold with many of these symptoms during the Dec19-Jan20 time period. I had it myself. What's notable about all these anecdotes is that not a single one of them remembers experiencing the #1 most distinctive COVID symptom: losing the sense of smell. Of course, not every COVID sufferer experiences that, but you'd think if there was an outbreak of real COVID during that time we'd have heard a lot of reports of it. Take a look at all the people reporting being sick back then on this HN thread alone -- nobody leads with the most distinctive COVID symptom.