COVID-19

Epidemiologist Maria Sundaram, of the Rollins School of Public Health, answers questions about a newly added symptom for COVID-19: loss of the sense of smell.

Maria Sundaram

Why did the CDC recently add “a new loss of taste and smell” to the list of symptoms for COVID-19?

Medical providers were seeing this condition in their patients. While rare, this unusual symptom was thought to be worth identifying as part of the COVID-19 differential diagnosis. Researchers are still looking into COVID-19’s impact on our senses, but there are smell receptors in the back of our nostrils that send neural messages to our brains. It is possible that COVID-19 is looking for different epithelial cells to infect and sees these epithelial cells right next to the neurons and thinks, oh, this is a great environment for me.

But you can lose your smell from a regular flu or cold as well. How is this different?

You lose your smell in those cases because your nose is stuffy and you’re having a hard time getting air into your nasal passages. For COVID-19, it may occur in people who don’t have nasal congestion.

What about your sense of taste? Why is that affected?

The senses of taste and smell often function together. There’s an interaction between the air that goes into your nose and the air that goes into your mouth. There’s also interaction in our brain. If you can’t smell your food, you have a hard time tasting your food as well.

Should I get tested for COVID-19 if I lose my sense of smell or taste?

A sudden and complete loss of taste and smell may signal a need to be tested for the coronavirus. The good news is if COVID-19 is to blame, it’s likely that your senses of smell/taste will return. However, this is a new and unusual outcome and we don’t know enough about it right now to say definitively the degree to which, or the time scale on which, this might happen.