> That would certainly help to stop the spread of Covid, but if everyone followed your advice, we would very quickly find ourselves with an entirely new set of problems.

The advice of not going to a store if you're sick with something that resembles Covid? Is that such a large number of people it will have a big cost?

I have to admit I skimmed the parent and didn't read the comment correctly. I have to take back what I said.

The tricky part there is "resembles Covid". The symptoms are so variable from person to person (I've heard it likened to the flu, a bad cold, a mild cold, a sinus infection - all this from different people that tested positive) that nailing those down with any certainty enough to make hard decisions like that on, is basically impossible.

Complete loss of smell and taste seems to be pretty specific to covid19, though. That's more than "resembles covid".

I completely lose smell and taste every time I get a reasonable respiratory infection. This happens at least once a year.

From what people who experienced it told me, it's not the smell & taste loss which come from colds and similar illnesses, where your nose is runny or obstructed.

One person told me she was cleaning something with vinegar, her daughter entered the kitchen and told her "mum, this vinegar smell is horrible!" and then it dawned on her she couldn't smell anything.

No runny or stuffy nose. She was normal, except she couldn't smell anything.

At this point of the pandemic, complete loss of smell and taste of this kind almost certainly indicates covid19, outliers notwithstanding.

Trust me, I know the difference between being unable to smell/taste because your nose is blocked, and actual anosmia where you can breathe normally but the sense is just gone.

Fair enough.

I don't know if most people experience anosmia like you describe while having a common cold or the flu, though (I think they don't). From what I've read this symptom is a pretty reliable indicator of covid19, so much so that at this time it pretty much rules out any other diagnosis and it is a strong basis for medical decision making. (Of course, there will always be outliers for any symptom. Decisions still need to be made at the population scale, though).

I can manage to buy myself a three-course dinner with wine and dessert (spending a pretty $$) without going into a shop. I've managed to buy hundreds of dollars worth of books from my local bookstores without going into shops. I can lie on my floor gasping for air and get power tools delivered to my porch!

Let's be clear about what we want. It sounds like you want people to spend money, not primarily that you want them to enter shops and breathe air and touch things.