Journalist Paola Totaro on Covid’s weirdest legacy

Loss of taste and smell has been a strange symptom of Covid-19. Why does it happen - and what’s it like to live with?

In a survey that will surprise no one, just over half of young adults said they would rather lose their sense of smell than their access to technology. These hypotheticals pop up every few years and, if nothing else, they reinforce just how much we undervalue our fifth sense. Until we lose it.

Loss of taste and smell has been a strange symptom of Covid-19, affecting many millions of people. London-based journalist Paola Totaro is one of those and today she looks at the science and the experience of living in a world where the joy of nature’s perfumes and the familiar scents of loved ones and places suddenly disappear.