[pps]

I have something like that right now (started exactly week ago), I can't smell or taste and I can easily breath through the nose, but I also feel some pressure, like it would be a little bit swollen inside. It's cold outside and breating through the nose is mildly painful when I go out. Looks more like sinus infection without typical symptoms. I wonder if you felt it like that or the loss of smell was the only indicator of illness.

[Herodotus38]

What you have is exactly how my experience with Covid was, I recommend getting tested.

[john4532452]

Whats the point of testing anyway when there is no vaccine available ?

[Corrado]

It helps to track the virus and facilitates contact tracing.

[Herodotus38]

A couple possible reasons I can think of:

-If the person gets sicker later, you don't have to wait on another test to know the diagnosis and start treatment.

-Second is from a contact tracing perspective and isolation perspective. If this person is positive, it is that much more important that they limit contact with people.

-Third is if you are positive you can donate your plasma which *may help others (good randomized controlled trials for convalescent plasma are still pending).

-If you are positive you make not need the vaccine later, it also could reduce your risk potentially for being infected later, less stress.

-Also helps population wide to know total number of infected to get an idea of rate of spread, herd immunity, other metrics.

[autokad]

I was sick with something like that at the end of nov 2019 - end of dec 2019. normally cold air is relaxing to my lungs, but then cold air stung. no loss of taste though, does the pain feel like stinging or something else?

[pps]

Yes, stinging describes it precisely.

[autokad]

Interesting. I wonder if that's something 'normal' to getting a raspatory disease or if there is a specific kind that leads to that

[remote_phone]

This sounds like a sinus infection. Go to your doctor and ask her to prescribe medication and a covid test.

[pps]

And it feels like sinus infection, but on the other hand I can't imagine why I can't smell and taste stuff if I can easily breath. I'm taking already meds for sinus infection, will call my doctor after the weekend if there will be no improvement. Unfortunately in Poland we can't get covid test without having all four symptoms of it... I could do this myself, but it's very pricey and I'm doing my work from home and wearing a mask in shops anyway, so I'll just isolate even more.

[war1025]

This is why I think all the case count numbers are basically garbage.

For most people, going to the doctor is more bother than it's worth and half the time they'll tell you that you don't qualify for whatever test or treatment you were hoping to receive anyway.

There is a massive disconnect between how many people are testing positive and how many people are actually infected, and it's skewing everyone's perception of the virus.

[kaitai]

This seems to have huge geographic variation. Some places you've got to go to the doc & get a referral & they're screening people out of getting the test. Other places, they're having drive-through or walk-up testing for anyone, no questions asked. Of course you'll get different results in these cases.

[bookofjoe]

Please stop going into shops.

[jlmorton]

That would certainly help to stop the spread of Covid, but if everyone followed your advice, we would very quickly find ourselves with an entirely new set of problems.

You can't optimize only to stop viral spread. You have to strike some balance between maintaining normalcy and reducing the risk of spread.

Covid has killed a million, and will surely kill many more, but global poverty is going to increase this year for the first time in decades, and tens of millions are going go hungry.

[Dylan16807]

> That would certainly help to stop the spread of Covid, but if everyone followed your advice, we would very quickly find ourselves with an entirely new set of problems.

The advice of not going to a store if you're sick with something that resembles Covid? Is that such a large number of people it will have a big cost?

[jlmorton]

I have to admit I skimmed the parent and didn't read the comment correctly. I have to take back what I said.

[Karunamon]

The tricky part there is "resembles Covid". The symptoms are so variable from person to person (I've heard it likened to the flu, a bad cold, a mild cold, a sinus infection - all this from different people that tested positive) that nailing those down with any certainty enough to make hard decisions like that on, is basically impossible.

[kaitai]

I can manage to buy myself a three-course dinner with wine and dessert (spending a pretty $$) without going into a shop. I've managed to buy hundreds of dollars worth of books from my local bookstores without going into shops. I can lie on my floor gasping for air and get power tools delivered to my porch!

Let's be clear about what we want. It sounds like you want people to spend money, not primarily that you want them to enter shops and breathe air and touch things.