One coronavirus symptom has been found to be the clearest sign that people have the virus - and it's not a cough or high fever.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the main signs of Covid have been a high temperature, a new, continuous cough and a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste.
Researchers from the ZOE Covid Symptom study, at King’s College London, found that loss of smell or taste was the strongest predictor of a Covid-19 infection.
In fact, someone with either of those symptoms was 17 times more likely to test positive for the virus than someone without.
Loss of smell or taste - anosmia and ageusia - also remained the best predictor of a positive test result regardless of a person’s age, sex, or illness.
However, the team’s analysis also showed that having a high temperature and lung symptoms such as shortness of breath or a cough were also strongly associated with having a positive test.
Researchers looked at data from more than 10 million respondents from April 1st 2020 to July 31st 2020, analysing half a million COVID tests and millions of health reports.
Data was analysed from participants logging their symptoms, tests and vaccines on the UK ZOE COVID Symptom Study app.
Scientists in the UK, US and Israel have been looking back over the data from the first wave of the pandemic to find out whether the same symptoms and predictions hold up in different populations.
The analysis confirms earlier findings by the ZOE Covid Symptom study that loss of smell is a strong predictor of coronavirus infection.
Thanks to these findings, anosmia was added to the list of official symptoms for the NHS, alongside cough and fever.
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