- During the COVID-19 pandemic, many patients experienced a loss of taste and smell during and after being infected with SARS-CoV-2.
- A retrospective study by researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, a member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, investigated the loss of olfactory and gustatory senses and estimated that about a quarter of Americans who had COVID-19 reported only partial or no recovery of taste or smell. The results are published in The Laryngoscope.
- “We wanted to quantify the national impact of smell disorders resulting from COVID,” said Neil Bhattacharyya, MD, FACS, Professor of Otolaryngology at Mass Eye and Ear. “With this data we can understand, in big numbers, how many people lost their sense of smell or taste due to COVID infection and how many people never fully recovered those senses.”
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Even Years Later, Millions Of COVID Patients Still Don’t Have Full Recovery Of Smell, Taste
FILE - This undated, colorized electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, indicated in yellow, emerging from the surface of cells, indicated in blue/pink, cultured in a laboratory. The sample was isolated from a patient in the U.S. There’s less risk of getting long COVID in the omicron era than in the pandemic’s earlier waves, according to a study of nearly 10,000 Americans that aims to help scientists better understand the mysterious condition, published in JAMA on Thursday, May 25, 2023. (NIAID-RML via AP, File)
