The 3 Strangest Covid-19 Symptoms Explained

Anosmia, ‘happy hypoxia,’ and blood clots: What scientists know and don’t know

Keren Landman, MD
Elemental

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Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event in modern medical practice, and health care providers are seeing extraordinary numbers of severely ill people. Many providers think the novel coronavirus is causing the human body to behave in weird ways. In some cases, they may be right — but not in all of them.

Some of the side effects associated with Covid-19 are unusual symptoms for a respiratory infection while others are simply being observed by doctors more often because of the sheer number of people infected. As the pandemic unfolds, both physicians and the public are struggling to differentiate between the two as a way to better understand the virus. Below are three symptoms that have received recent attention.

Easily clotting blood

One symptom that has been described as a mysterious complication of Covid-19 infection is the presence of blood clots in people with more severe forms of the disease.

In a prepublication study recounting the autopsy findings of 20 people in Louisiana who died from Covid-19, the authors described clotting in the small blood vessels of many patients’ lungs. A group of Dutch scientists also…

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Keren Landman, MD
Elemental

Infectious disease doctor | Epidemiologist | Journalist | Health disparities, HIV/STDs, LGBTQ care, et al. | kerenlandman.com.