What to do if you suddenly lose your sense of smell.
"Self-isolate and stay home," Professor Friedland said.
Professor Harvey recommends trying to book in a telehealth consultation if you can.
This means you can continue to self-isolate and speak to either your GP, or a specialist, to discuss your anosmia and any other nasal symptoms that might alert them to other causes of smell loss.
"There are some early interventions one can do to help protect the degeneration of the smell centre, and then promote early recovery," Professor Harvey said.
They're relatively low risk and could be followed for a month or two even without being formally examined by a doctor in person.
Why can you lose your sense of smell when you have COVID-19?
"Perhaps the most important real estate in the nasal cavity sits in the roof of the nasal cavity," Professor Friedland said, "just between our eyes."
That's where the brain meets the roof of the nasal cavity, known as the olfactory bulb, and it sends very delicate little fibres through what's known as the cribriform plate.
These olfactory fibres supply a tiny little area called the olfactory epithelium — it's a couple of millimetres across — which is responsible for our sense of smell.
"That's why people sniff or breathe in, when we want to smell because we want to get the smell up to that little area," he said.
When we have a cold, the path to that area is obstructed because we've got inflammation in the nose so smell particles can't get up there.
But this coronavirus is a tiny particle so it can reach that area, and it actually affects the lining and the receptors in the roof of the nose.
This area, together with other nasal tissue, is rich in ACE-2 receptors which the virus attacks.
"This is a mechanism which actually damages the lining of those olfactory cells," Professor Friedland said.
How long will you lose your sense of smell?
While he doesn't want to make people panic, Professor Friedland said if you lose your sense of smell it's not clear whether this is a permanent or temporary situation. And losing your sense of smell can also mean losing the subtleties of taste.
Our olfactory centre also has some ability to regenerate, Professor Harvey said.
People who have had injuries to their olfactory systems can go through a program of olfactory retraining.
If you do lose your sense of smell you need to be careful as you could miss warning signs for things like leaking gas or fires.END=GOLDEN AMITABHA MONASTERY=VIETNAMESE BUDDHIST NUN=THICH CHAN TANH.AUSTRALIA,SYDNEY.5/4/2020.
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