COVID-19 different from the flu

Dear Doctors: Why are people making a big deal out of the fact that you can lose your sense of smell and taste when you get sick with COVID-19? The same thing happens to me when I’ve got a plain old cold.

Dear Reader: Many of us who have slogged through the unpleasant symptoms of a cold or the flu know that losing your sense of smell, and often a large portion of your sense of taste, is a common part of the experience. The same has proven to be true with COVID-19. However, it turns out that this loss of the sense of smell, known as anosmia, occurs for two very different reasons.

When it comes to COVID-19, researchers have recently uncovered the surprising reason for anosmia as one of the earliest symptoms of infection. Rather than congestion, as with a cold or the flu, the loss of smell in people with COVID-19 occurs due to how the virus affects the nervous system. According to a study published by researchers at Harvard University earlier this summer, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, attacks certain cells whose job is to support the olfactory sensory neurons. By damaging the support cells, the virus prevents the olfactory sensory neurons from responding to the molecules that make up different types of scents.

As we’ve mentioned here before, researchers are still in the earliest stages of learning about the novel coronavirus and COVID-19. —