1.6 million US COVID survivors may still have impaired sense of smellUpwards of 700,000—perhaps as many as 1.6 million—US COVID-19 survivors haven't recovered their sense of smell after more than 6 months, according to a research letter yesterday in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.In the first study of its kind, a researcher from Washington University and two editors from the journal estimated the number of new daily COVID-19 cases from Jan 13, 2020, to Mar 7, 2021, using data from the COVID Tracking Project.
They also analyzed data from two studies estimating the incidence of olfactory dysfunction (OD) as 52.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 29.6% to 75.2%) and the OD recovery rate of 95.3% (95% CI, 92.6% to 98.0%).Six months after