If you can’t telling the difference between tea and coffee any more you might need to be tested for the coronavirus.
Loss or your sense of smell has emerged as one of the tell-tale symptoms for COVID19.
Ear, Nose and Throat Consultant at Aut Even Hospital in Kilkenny – Dr Neil Riley – says if you notice that you can’t taste things properly, it could be due to infection by the virus.
He told KCLR “I think it’s a good one for people to know, that if you lose your sense of smell, people tend not to be aware of losing their smell, but what they notice first is that they can’t taste anything because a major component of your perception of taste is actually smelling the food as you eat it, so they’ll notice that potatoes and apples are indistinguishable, the standard one is tea and coffee are indistinguishable”.
Meanwhile a new test for the coronavirus could be available in Ireland next week.
Local doctors have been told that it could mean results of testing for COVID19 could be available in under an hour.
Dr Riley said “There is word that there is a new test system becoming available in the next which will be able to tell in 45 minutes if you’ve got the virus or not, so we are looking forward to that”.
“If it becomes widely available and comes into mass production, certainly this is the message that we are getting at the moment that it will be available in the next week or two and if someone has this symptom (tea and coffee taste) that they should get tested”.
