
“Loss of smell” Google search now trending in West Virginia, Nebraska, Nevada - vinnyglennon
https://mobile.twitter.com/teroterotero/status/1276966591972900865?s=09
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jka
This trend is even more striking (and perhaps more convincing and verifiable)
when you extrapolate it out over a longer time scale:

[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%22loss%20...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%22loss%20of%20smell%22)

Edit: just to temper this a bit; trends can be misleading and I'm not stating
that this query is a robust indicator. It'd be great to figure out how
reliable these charts are.

~~~
bentcorner
So.. what's going on in Nigeria?

[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=NG&q=%22loss%20...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=NG&q=%22loss%20of%20smell%22)

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Exactly what that trend suggests, most likely. Nigeria has 245k (!!)
tuberculosis deaths a year, so it's entirely plausible IMO that they could
fail to notice an uncontrolled epidemic of a different pneumonia-causing
disease.

~~~
bobthepanda
Interestingly enough, Japan is chalking up success in containment of COVID to
its contact tracing system originally developed for TB:
[https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/japans-contact-tracing-
method-...](https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/japans-contact-tracing-method-is-
old-but-gold/)

~~~
ashtonkem
Not surprising, TB is also a respiratory disease with a long dormancy period.
While the details are slightly different (latent TB patients apparently aren’t
infectious), one would expect a TB tracing program to be roughly correct for
any other respiratory disease. I’m sure the SARS and bird flu outbreaks have
given regional governments an opportunity to consider how to prepare as well.

~~~
zamalek
TB has proven to be a great practice run for COVID. Southern African countries
have not messed about with it. I still remember just how strict things became
even with minor outbreaks. For something like a decade, Zimbabwe has required
Foot and Mouth Disease control at borders - long after the risk has passed. I
was temperature screened in an airport sometime in the early 2010s in South
Africa for a domestic flight. My friends back there can't leave their home 95%
of the time, they can't buy smokes, they can't buy beer. African countries are
experts at this, and the comparison to America is depressing (including my own
idiotic behavior).

~~~
perl4ever
The figures I see on the internet for testing in most African countries are
not very high. It's become a talking point that more tests produce more cases;
couldn't you argue the inverse - fewer tests produce fewer cases?

It appears about 3200 tests per million are reported for all of Africa,
compared to say Spain at ~110,000 or the US at around 96,000.

~~~
zamalek
Absolutely, maybe I'm wrong. My experience has just been that Africa deeply
respects the power of a pathogen.

~~~
perl4ever
Among the top 20 countries with the most new cases at the moment, other than
South Africa, Russia, and the US, they seem to all be developing countries
outside Africa.

So if African countries in general have had a good response, I wonder why it's
spreading so rapidly in countries like India, Mexico, Chile, Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia, Bangladesh, Peru, Colombia, Iran, etc...do they not respect the power
of a pathogen?

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jshaqaw
Loss of smell was mainly how I suspected I had a Covid - later confirmed with
an antibody test. Stay safe people.

~~~
defqon
What was your experience like?

~~~
jshaqaw
Very minor. Aside from loss of smell for a month my wife and I had no
significant symptoms. I felt pretty exhausted but those weeks in NYC were so
crazy that it’s hard to say what was Covid and what was ambient stress. My
kids had positive antibody tests but never had symptoms. We were very
fortunate.

~~~
ashtonkem
Loss of smell apparently is correlate with more minor cases and better
outcomes. I don’t believe we know why yet.

~~~
kuroguro
Either that or people with more serious symptoms have other things to worry
about and don't notice/report it. Additional research required.

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albntomat0
The posted URL is of a tweet with an image of google trends data.

Here is a link to the actual website, which allows filtering by time, region,
etc:
[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%201-m&ge...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%201-m&geo=US&q=%22loss%20of%20smell%22)

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wolfgang42
I get that loss of smell is a symptom of COVID-19, but what’s so special about
1 AM?

~~~
stuntkite
When I had the bug in March my symptoms would be sparse during the day and
suddenly get worse from 1AM to 6AM. Similar for my partner. Cough would ramp
up, cold sweats, fever, and my throat would turn into a sun bleached garden
hose full of glitter. We both also had a loss of smell but it wasn’t the
primary symptom that bothered us.

Anecdotal, but possibly related.

~~~
tsomctl
Huh. I was the exact opposite; there was no schedule for my symptoms. Some
days I woke up great, and was exhausted by noon, other days I woke up feeling
terrible, and had tons of energy in the afternoon.

~~~
stuntkite
My partner and I both work kind of an inverted schedule so it could be our
body clocks. I’d bet the searches just have more to do with laying in bed
quietly freaking out into google.

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rladd
This search may be better:
[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%201-d&geo=...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%201-d&geo=US&q=cant%20smell)

Shows Texas, Arizona and Florida as the most hits.

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Zaheer
Apologies for being ignorant - what's the context here?

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mistersquid
Loss of smell is a signal symptom of COVID-19.

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chrisseaton
> signal symptom

What's the difference between a 'signal symptom' and a normal 'symptom'?
Aren't all symptoms signals?

~~~
pstuart
Likely s/signal/single/

~~~
lisper
Nope, a signal symptom is a thing:

[https://medical-
dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/signal+symp...](https://medical-
dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/signal+symptom)

"A symptom that is premonitory of an impending condition such as the aura that
precedes an attack of epilepsy or migraine."

~~~
sdinsn
By that definition, loss of smell is not a signal symptom for COVID.

