Can you TASTE coronavirus?
Journalist Lynne Wallis thought she was well briefed on all the symptoms of Covid-19... until she caught it
Getting a cold in October is nothing new, so when the familiar sniffling began, I wasn’t perturbed. I always suffer from autumn hay fever too, so I am well used to having itchy eyes and a runny, bunged-up nose when the clocks go back.
But this year, I noticed something else: a vile taste in my mouth and a strange smell. Putrid, bitter and chemical. It was unusual, but I didn’t imagine for a second it might be coronavirus because I had never heard that might be a symptom.
Then a message arrived from a friend I’d lunched with 12 days earlier, saying she had tested positive for Covid-19. She had a severe headache, muscle pains, chronic fatigue… and a foul taste in her mouth.
I still had the weird taste – and a wheezy chest, which I had attributed to my asthma returning, as it often does briefly with any cold.
I qualified for a Covid test as my sense of smell was off, but as that wasn’t unusual thanks to my allergies and hay fever, I didn’t really imagine I had the virus. But I went for one, near my home in Ramsgate in Kent.
So when I received a text saying I had tested positive, it was a massive, frightening shock. I had coronavirus. But I hadn’t had a temperature or been fatigued. I’d had no headache or cough and my sense of smell was returning. I still had that foul taste in my mouth though. I’m 60 and now know of 10 friends who have all tested positive for the virus since March. The severity and range of their symptoms has varied, but they all have one thing in common. When I asked them, they all said they had also experienced this vile taste and smell.
One assumed there had been a problem with the drains in her neighbourhood. Another said it smelled like rancid rats. A third described it as “bitter, like black coffee with Guinness”.
So why isn’t it on the list of symptoms? I contacted the Royal College of Physicians and Dr Philip Gothard, a specialist in infectious diseases at London’s University
College Hospital, put it into context.
“I’ve heard of it and, yes, people do experience it, but it’s not a specific indicator of Covid-19,” he says. “Over a million people have had coronavirus and there can be many different symptoms. A weird taste in the mouth can go on for weeks or months.”
Kent GP Dr Mike
Cardwell, adds: “You’d think we’d be wiser and ask patients about this specifically. We should be asking about a new funny taste and smell, as well as asking about loss of taste or smell. We may have been asking the wrong question.”
If I had been aware earlier of this symptom, I could have avoided putting others at risk. Thankfully no one I’d seen while I was infectious went on to develop the virus.
Loss of taste and smell weren’t listed as key symptoms when we locked down in March. They were only added two months later, in May. So why isn’t this added to the list?
The Department of Health and Social Care has acknowledged that Covid-19 has a much longer list of symptoms than the ones they use in the case definition.
A spokesman told me: “An expert scientific group keeps the symptoms under review as we increase our understanding of the virus.”
Fine words, but they’d have been cold comfort had I passed the virus on to someone.
If you have a bad taste in your mouth and can smell something strange, I’d suggest you self-isolate and get tested. It’s not listed as a symptom officially yet, but I really believe it is a clear indicator of coronavirus.
One person described it as bitter, like black coffee with Guinness