Can You Taste Coronavirus?

Journalist Lynne Wallis thought she was well briefed on all the symptoms of Covid-19... until she caught it

- Lynne Wallis

Getting a cold in October is nothing new, so when the familiar sniffling began, I wasn’t perturbed. I always suffer from autumn hay fever too, so I am well used to having itchy eyes and a runny, bunged-up nose when the clocks go back.

But this year, I noticed something else: a vile taste in my mouth and a strange smell. Putrid, bitter and chemical. It was unusual, but I didn’t imagine for a second it might be coronavirus because I had never heard that might be a symptom.

Then a message arrived from a friend I’d lunched with 12 days earlier, saying she had tested positive for Covid-19. She had a severe headache, muscle pains, chronic fatigue… and a foul taste in her mouth.

I still had the weird taste – and a wheezy chest, which I had attributed to my asthma returning, as it often does briefly with any cold.

I qualified for a Covid test as my sense of smell was off, but as that wasn’t unusual thanks to my allergies and hay fever, I didn’t really imagine I had the virus. But I went for one, near my home in Ramsgate in Kent.