From Smell Loss to Sore Throat to Pink Eye: Is Covid Even Still Covid-19?

Let’s dive into the fascinating and complex world of virology to find out.

Image by kjpargeter on Freepik

When Covid-19 first shook the world in late 2019 and 2020, an eerie disappearance of the sense of smell and taste plagued about half of the infected. This then became the tell-tale sign of Covid-19. One famous man even engulfed raw onions and garlic paste to prove his taste had indeed been robbed by SARS-CoV-2, the Covid-19 virus.

But what’s a formidable foe if it’s too predictable? For SARS-CoV-2, it was anything but predictable. As SARS-CoV-2 mutates and evolves over time, its Covid-19 symptoms began to change as well:

• In 2021, the more virulent and transmissible Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 took over, and more infected people experienced runny noses and sore throats instead — like a bad cold. Smell and taste loss was not even listed in the top 10 most common symptoms of Delta.
• In 2022, the milder but more immune-evasive Omicron outcompeted Delta and remained the prevailing variant to this day. Instead of runny noses, sore throats and hoarse voices began to occur more often.
• In 2023, a sub-variant of Omicron dubbed Arcturus gained another level of evolutionary competitiveness and began to…