When Russell Donnelly lost his sense of taste and smell, he figured it was the coronavirus.
A positive rapid test confirmed his theory, but his friends didn’t believe the 30-year-old from Jersey City, N.J., really couldn’t taste anything, he told NJ.com.
To prove it to them, he decided to join the “COVID Taste Test” trend on TikTok and made a video of himself eating a raw onion and garlic paste and drinking a shot of lemon juice.
Donnelly posted the video on TikTok last week and it soon went viral -- garnering more than 15.4 million views.
Though Donnelly’s video has gone viral recently, the “COVID Taste Test” trend has been around for a while.
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Donnelly’s video begins with him chopping off the ends of a red onion as he explains that he has the virus, but can’t taste anything.
“Everyone keeps telling me to try and eat like some nasty stuff, but I don’t have any nasty stuff at my house, so I figured I’d just like eat some stuff that would be strong or pungent … just to see what it’s like,” he says in the video.
@rustardlikemustard Covid taste testing. This is the craziest sensation. ##covid19 ##fyp ##MyHobby ##fineart
♬ original sound - rustardlikemustard
“So here’s an onion,” he adds as he takes a huge bite out of it, as if it were an apple.
But he hardly reacts.
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“Nothing,” he says, chewing the onion as he opens a bottle of lemon juice and pours it into a shot glass.
Then he takes the lemon juice shot, which he gargles before swallowing -- again, with almost no reaction.
“Nothing,” he says again.
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Then, he picks up a small jar of garlic paste.
“Oh that would hurt,” he says before putting a sizable spoonful of the paste in his mouth.
“Nothing,” he says again. “This is a crazy virus.”
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Many commenters said they also experienced the same loss of taste and smell that Donnelly did, while others just said his stomach might start hurting from the food combination.
“Imagine if his taste came back in the middle of this,” one person wrote.
“OKAY BUT ACID REFLUX IS STILL A THING,” someone else commented.
Another person added: “This hurt to watch.”
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Donnelly has continued to make “COVID Taste Test” videos, which show him eating an Oreo with Wasabi in it, drinking orange juice after brushing his teeth with a huge glob of toothpaste, and drinking shots of vinegar.