Not to be Sniffed At

Many people who have a Covid19 infection lose their sense of smell. In some cases, the olfactory sense is lost for an extended period. It's unknown, however, if the virus damages sensory cells in the nose or the parts of the brain that interpret the sense of smell (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/21/covid-loss-of-smell-nasal-cell-destruction-research). A small study took biopsies from 24 Covid patients including 9 individuals who had lost their sense of smell for at least 4 months. The data suggested that immunological 'T' cells were only found in tissues from subjects who had lost the sense of smell for a extended period. The inflammation produced by the immune cells reduced the number of olfactory cells. It consequently appears that nasal cell destruction causes the prolonged loss of smell in some Covid19 infected folk.