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Comment by jaclaz | Hacker News Reader

I do understand how anosmia can be an easy to detect symptom of COVID-19, and the 80% of positives, but I wonder what other illness can provoke the anosmia in the remaining (negative) 20%?

Is it common?

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Causes of Loss of Smell — Mayo Clinic

https://www.mayoclinic.org/symptoms/loss-of-smell/basics/cau...

Not included there, but alcohol and drug use can cause it as well.

I've experienced it a couple times after having a bad flu or cold. It usually happens towards the middle the disease, when your nose is completely stuffed. It usually lasts a few days (think two to five days) and - in my case at least - it resolves itself once my cough starts to be more 'productive'.

From the few reports I've heard from people who experienced it because of Covid-19, it seems the Covid-19 experience lasts way longer.

If you have a bad cold and your nose clogs up you can also pretty much lose your smell, but then again you also have typical cold symptoms which isn't really common with covid.

Yes, and as Mayo clinic above lists also polips and a fracture, i.e. unsurprisingly if the nose is clogged or its inner lining is altered, you loose your smell, but I would have thought that the sample was excluding these, either because they can be easily diagnosed (polips or fracture) or - as you say - because typical cold (or allergy) symptoms are not usually connected to Covid-19.

All in all the causes are listed under three main categories:

1. Problems with the inner lining of your nose

2. Obstructions of your nasal passages

3. Damage to your brain or nerves

If - as I think - the first two are excluded, the 20% of non-positives but suffereing from anosmia seems very high to me.

Also, as it was reported anecdotally:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24664925

the anosmia from Covid-19 seems to be much stronger than thoe connected to cold and similar.

Not sure about anyone else, but I lose my sense of smell regularly when I get a cold. (Not due to being stuffed up -- even when I inhale through my nose I smell nothing.)

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