New Study Reveals Millions Of People Lack Sense Of Smell Or Taste Years After COVID-19 Pandemic

Millions Of People Lack Sense Of Smell Or Taste Years After COVID-19 Infection, According To New Study

Millions of people who were sick with COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic have yet to regain their sense of smell or taste.

That’s the startling finding of a new study published in The Laryngoscope.

And for some, the loss of taste or smell can have severe consequences if, for example, they can’t smell a gas leak or a house fire, or if their career depends on taste and smell.

 

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The survey data showed that in 2021, 35.8 million people — about 14 percent of the adult U.S. population — had been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Of those people, 60.5 percent reported a loss of smell, and 58.2 percent reported a loss of taste. These symptoms were especially common among people with more severe cases of COVID-19 infection.

By the end of 2021, almost 25 percent of them still hadn’t fully recovered their full senses of smell or taste, and more than 3 percent didn’t recover them at all.

Once again, people with more severe cases were more likely to have an incomplete recovery — or none at all.