3. Results:
Table 1 shows the demographics and frequencies of reported symptoms. Questionnaires were completed for 77 participants; 38 males and 39 females. The mean age was 55 years (25-94). There were 31 (40.3%) staff members, 32 inpatients (41.6%) and 14 outpatients (18.2%). We consider these participants to have mild-moderate disease as the majority of those with more severe disease were excluded as unable to answer the questionnaire reliably or it was deemed inappropriate to ask. The staff predominantly worked on medical wards (39%), surgical wards (23%) and the emergency department (23%); and mainly comprised of nurses (35%), health care assistants (32%) and doctors (22%), as well as catering and administrative staff.
Fatigue was the most commonly reported symptom at 80.5%, followed by fever (70%), cough (68%) and shortness of breath (66%).
Thirty-nine (50.6%) participants reported a change in their smell and 40 (51.9%) a change in taste, with few reporting one without the other. Due to the strong association (p<0.001) between taste and smell, further analysis is reported with these combined as OTDs, individual associations are reported in Table 2 . Participants with a new OTD were significantly younger (mean 48.3, SD=15.1) than those without (mean 62.6, SD=21.2), t(77)= -3.34, p=0.001. As can be seen by the frequencies cross-tabulated in Table 2, there was a significant relationship (p<0.05) between reporting an OTD and a sore throat, sensation of nasal blockage, fatigue and fever. OTDs were also more commonly reported by staff (64.5%) and outpatients (78.6%) than inpatients (37.5%), p=0.016. OTDs were not significantly associated with gender, nasal discharge, facial pain, diarrhoea or nausea.
None of the 43 who reported an OTD had occupational exposure to chemicals and two were smokers. A sudden onset was reported in 28 of these 43 (65.1%). Of those who reported a change in smell, 26 (66.7%) reported total anosmia, 9 (23.1%) hyposmia, and the rest reported dysosmia (10.3%). Four participants reported a change in taste only: 3 described hypogeusia and 1 dysgeusia.
OTDs were reported to have developed before the cardinal symptoms in 5 cases (11.6%), after in 21 participants (48.8%), at around the same time in 14 (32.6%) and 3 participants were unsure of timing (6.9%). Twenty-three participants (53.5%) had complete resolution of OTDs at the time of interview: 4 (17.4%) within several days, 6 (26.1%) at approximately 1 week and 13 (56.5%) longer than a week.