Not sure if Covid?

[JalepenosXCheetos]

I didn’t think much but last month I went to a wedding and was playing with a few kids. One for for sure sounded sick, stuffy nose slight fever. I would say a few days later I came down with itchy throat slight fever then a horrible cough that lasted a couple weeks. I lost my sense of smell/taste for a day or 2 with diarrhea  but not sure from the stuffy nose. I was in Hawaii at the time and just stayed in my room but didnt take the pcr. I would say I never was fatigue or a crazy high fever. I am also fully vaccinated.

[auntiejessi]

The only way to know is to test and see what antibodies you have. It certainly sounds possible, but no one can tell you that for sure.

[AnnieBrooke]

I believe I've read that other things can also cause you to lose your sense of smell/taste, including colds, the flu, sinus infections and congestion, it's not just Covid. A medical guy in an article recently was asked about how to tell Covid from other things, especially if the Omicron variant turns out to produce only mild symptoms. His comment was that you would have a fever with Covid. I would take having had a fever plus loss of smell/taste as more suspicious than just loss of smell/taste. Covid coughs are dry and constant (at least at first), not those moist, croupy coughs you can get with congestion or colds. Finally, though they thought in the early days of Covid that there was a version of it that hit the GI tract, I haven't seen anything written in over a year that backs that up, so diarrhea wouldn't be suggestive of Covid.

If you haven't been vaccinated, you could get an antibody test to see if you have antibodies to Covid. That would not prove the incident you describe was Covid, but it would tell you if you have ever had it. I don't think the antibody test can tell antibodies caused by Covid from antibodies caused by the vaccine, so if you've gotten the shots you probably wouldn't get good information by taking an antibody test at this point.

[Paxiled]

Loss of smell and taste may be a very uncommon symptom of anything that causes nasal congestion, as the sense of smell is a lot of how we taste, but when you're in the middle of a pandemic and one the common, not uncommon, side effects is loss of smell and taste I'd say this person should have not only gotten a PCR test but should also be in isolation.  And lots and lots of people have gotten covid without fevers and have had nausea, which can cause diarrhea.  Because of the circumstances, which outweigh what occasionally happens in normal times, this person needs to get fully tested and be isolating so he or she doesn't spread the disease further.  There's a lot of long-haul sick people and dead people who wouldn't be if we all just did what we've been told to do.  Peace.

[orphanedhawk]

I lost my sense of smell from a sinus infection. As stated, the only way to know if you had it is to get an antibody test

[Jeffrie]

Covid symptoms are very similar to colds and flu, but what is fairly unique to it, is a loss of smell/taste.
You can have covid without losing smell/taste, but if you do have that symptom, it's more likely to be covid.

[oculus12]

Loss of smell/taste is common but not at all unique for covid.

[Paxiled]

Yes, but read what was written above.  It's best not to downplay this; we have enough problems with people wanting to believe "it's not covid."  In a pandemic, again, you don't relax.  You don't panic either, but you have to take that as the most common possibility when it's at pandemic level.  A test will show, and isolation will protect until one knows.