Together with a group of other experts; scientists, clinicians and patient advocates @GcChemosensR, I wondered…🤔
Is it taste or smell or more, because flavor of food is so much more, for example the sensations of burning from mustard or hot sauce or cooling from menthol? And how much does it matter that your nose may be stuffy? 
And how do we test this when all our labs are closed?
👩🔬❌😷
👩🔬❌😷
We created an online questionnaire that is still going on, that we translated into 30 languages. Check out our respondent numbers 🤯➡️ valentina-parma.shinyapps.io/GCCRSurveyNumb…
A large reduction in smell
A large reduction in taste
A smaller but still big reduction in burning and/or cooling sensations (chemesthesis)
This didn't have much to do with having a stuffy nose. 🤧
And taste and smell reductions often go together but burning/cooling doesn't always go along with the rest
We also looked for differences between people diagnosed by lab tests with a swab or blood test or those who were diagnosed by a clinician without such a test (based on symptoms only), and we didn’t see many differences
💉=🩺
💉=🩺
This just came out in the @GCChemosensoryR's first preprint “More than just smell” that shows that COVID-19 is associated with severe impairment of smell, taste, and chemesthesis medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
It’s been a ride doing a global study and we are seeing enormous payoff from the collaboration! If you want to know more about the consortium or join, take a look here. gcchemosensr.org
Share our study, because we are still looking for more participants! Find the survey in your language here: gcchemosensr.org/surveys/
Recap: #COVID19 reduces more than just smell. It also reduces taste and burning/cooling sensations. And it has little to do with a stuffy nose.
