Loss of smell and taste is an unusual and relatively recently reported symptom of COVID-19 infection. Should patients with that as a new symptom, called anosmia, self-isolate?
A new study helps answer that question. Ahmad Sedaghat, associate professor of otolaryngology at the University of Cincinnati, and colleagues undertook a major literature review, reported in Laryngoscope Investigative Otolaryngology. Of 2013 studies through March 28 that they screened, they identified nineteen as having full text available with detail needed for analysis. Importantly, in a French study they cite, 94% of patients who presented complaining of isolated anosmia tested positive for COVID-19; the others had risk factors that suggested the tests might have been falsely negative, one problem that has plagued the testing.
