I had never seen this information anywhere until today, but I just learned that many people (about 86 percent) who become sick from covid have the horrible side effect of losing their sense of smell and in a similar percentage of cases, their sense of taste. I don't know that I could handle that. Sense of smell is related to your appetite and enjoyment of food (not to mention sense of taste). So not only could you suffer long-term damage to your heart and lungs, you could also lose two of your senses for an extended period. Even more reason for me to live like a hermit. You can eventually recover these senses, but they may never be the same as they were before you got sick and older people like me may never recover it. I'll let an excerpt from the Harvard Health Blog explain it better than I could:
"The good news is that olfactory neurons are capable of regeneration. The bad news is that not everyone will return to his or her pre-COVID level of functioning. And, sadly, some of us might never regain our sense of smell or taste at all. According to some experts, patients with post-viral loss of smell have roughly a 60% to 80% chance of regaining some of their smell function within a year. Since the sense of smell usually diminishes due to age, the recovery could take longer and be less than complete for older adults."
"The good news is that olfactory neurons are capable of regeneration. The bad news is that not everyone will return to his or her pre-COVID level of functioning. And, sadly, some of us might never regain our sense of smell or taste at all. According to some experts, patients with post-viral loss of smell have roughly a 60% to 80% chance of regaining some of their smell function within a year. Since the sense of smell usually diminishes due to age, the recovery could take longer and be less than complete for older adults."
