Anyone who loses smell or taste must self-isolate for seven days

Losing your sense of smell or taste is now classed as an official coronavirus symptom by the NHS, and anyone suffering from this must now self-isolate for seven days. 

England’s deputy chief medical officer, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, announced the change today in efforts to prevent the spread of the disease.

If the person who has symptoms lives with others, the individual should stay home for seven days while other members of the household will have to stay home for 14 days even if they do not have symptoms. 

This means that alongside fever and cough, loss of sense of smell and taste are now the main symptoms of Covid-19. 

Professor Van-Tam states that this should hopefully increase the number of cases picked up from 91% to 93%. 

Professor Spector, Head of the Department of Genetic Epidemiology and leader of the Covid symptom study app at Kind’s College, said 50,000 to 70,000 people in the UK with Covid-19 are currently not being told to self-isolate even though they have the virus. 

He blamed Public Health England and the wider strategy that missed these two symptoms on the list, meaning thousands of cases were missing.

The World Health Organisation listed loss of smell and taste as ‘less common symptoms’ weeks ago. 

Professor Van-Tam said the science had been difficult and there had been many variables around how common the symptom is.