One of the first symptoms people infected with the virus behind COVID-19 often notice is a loss of smell.
But that appears to not be the only sense affected, doctors say, with hearing also affected in many patients.
There have been sporadic reports previously of hearing problems in COVID-19 patients, but the virus itself couldn't be confidently blamed - until now.
A 45-year-old man being treated for severe COVID-19 in the UK suddenly lost the hearing in one ear, according to doctors writing in journal BMJ Case Reports.
He'd had the usual symptoms for 10 days before being admitted to hospital and transferred to intensive care, where he spent 30 days on a respirator. After being treated with remdesivir, intravenous steroids and a blood transfusion he started to get better.
A week after being discharged though he noticed ringing in his left ear, before it suddenly went silent. Doctors couldn't find any blockage or obvious inflammation, and he tested negative for other known causes of hearing loss, such as rheumatoid arthritis, flu and HIV.
Apart from asthma he was fit and healthy, so the only thing left that could have caused it was the SARS-CoV-2 virus - either directly by causing cell death, or immune response's release of chemicals known to be toxic to the inner ear.
"This is the first reported case of sensorineural hearing loss following COVID-19 infection in the UK," the report says. "Given the widespread presence of the virus in the population and the significant morbidity of hearing loss, it is important to investigate this further."
His hearing was partially restored after treatment with steroids.
Known to science for less than a year, still is much to be learned about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus affects the body, and why different people have such varying symptoms and levels of severity.