Still struggling with your sense of smell after a bout with Covid-19? You’re far from alone.
About 5% of patients with confirmed cases of Covid-19 — some 27 million people worldwide — are estimated to have suffered a long-lasting loss of smell or taste, a new analysis suggests.
In the analysis published Wednesday in The BMJ (the peer-reviewed medical journal of the British Medical Association), researchers evaluated 18 previous studies of smell and taste loss across several continents and in varying demographic groups. About three quarters of those affected by loss of taste or smell regained those senses within 30 days.
Hospitalizations are up in several states after a surge in COVID-19 infections as subvariants of Omicron spread. And as Google search trends tell us, interest in boosters is high right now. "It is critically important to get boosted now, as we are in the midst of that BA.5 wave," Dr. Aditi Nerurkar of Harvard Medical School tells LX News Now. Dr. Nerurkar brings us depth and context on the top-searched questions on this topic.
For more on this story, go to NBC News.
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