Smell in the time of Covid | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Thursday
June 12, 2025

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2025
Smell in the time of Covid

Analysis

Andreas Kluth, Bloomberg
14 February, 2021, 04:10 pm
Last modified: 14 February, 2021, 05:57 pm

Related News

  • 10 more Covid-19 cases reported in country
  • Chattogram prepares hospitals amid rise in Covid cases
  • Govt advises against non-essential travel to India amid rising Covid-19 risks
  • Bangladesh reports 3 more Covid-19 cases
  • Screening tightened at Benapole border to prevent spread of new Covid variant

Smell in the time of Covid

The spread of SARS-CoV-2 has caused an associated pandemic of anosmia, the loss of smell. That could lead to scientific breakthroughs

Andreas Kluth, Bloomberg
14 February, 2021, 04:10 pm
Last modified: 14 February, 2021, 05:57 pm
Still there. Photographer: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images via Bloomberg
Still there. Photographer: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images via Bloomberg

Researchers estimate that about four out of five Covid-19 patients suffer a partial or total loss of smell, a condition known as anosmia. Many have no other symptoms. And no, it's got nothing to do with stuffy noses; it's all about the havoc the coronavirus wreaks on our nervous systems.

Many patients recover their olfaction quickly. Others smell less than they did before (hyposmia) or scent every odor wrong (parosmia). A spouse suddenly smells like a stranger, wine like cardboard, sewage like coffee. And some people never regain any olfaction. Worldwide, they must already number in the millions.

Smell, as much of the world is discovering in the pandemic, has long been our most underrated sense. We generally appreciate it less than the other four. Perhaps that's why we've given less money for research into it and, as a result, know relatively little about it. Claire Hopkins, the president of the British Rhinological Society, told me that the science of olfaction, compared to that of vision or hearing, is still in the Stone Age.

The Business Standard Google News Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel

But that could change, in part thanks to Hopkins herself. Last March she coauthored an unassuming news alert titled "Loss of smell as marker of Covid-19 infection." She was promptly inundated with responses from all over the world reporting the same phenomenon. Less than a year on, and olfaction is one of the hottest scenes in medicine. There's now even a Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research, where boffins from more than 60 countries collaborate to get to the bottom of Covid and smell.

Neurologically, it's our most primal sense: The perception of an odor shoots directly from our nasal receptors into our brains, bypassing the thalamus and immediately triggering a memory or emotion. By contrast, vision, hearing and touch must take several additional synaptic hops. So does taste — but most of our perception of that sense is actually a by-product of smell in the first place.

The very richness of our smell universe, however, means that we have no vocabulary to describe it adequately. Being at a loss for words — just think back to your most recent wine tasting — we tend to make the mistake of thinking our olfaction is less important than, say, our vision.

And yet, the merest whiff can dredge up long-buried memories of joy or pain. It can tell us if somebody else's immune system is similar to our own or very different — in which case we may feel sexual attraction. It picks up pheromones that trigger fear, aggression, love or intimacy long before the rest of our brain has even formulated a single thought.

It's only when smell is gone that people wake up to its commanding role in our biological, psychological and emotional existence. And that absence leaves a debilitating void. Many sufferers lose their appetite, confidence, libido and human connections. Some fall into depression. Parosmia can be even worse than anosmia, Hopkins told me, leaving people destabilized, unmoored and estranged.

The opposite condition, called hyperosmia, also exists. Sometimes it just means you're pregnant, other times that you may have epilepsy, often that you've been genetically lucky. That's the case with Joy Milne, a retired nurse in Scotland.

Milne is closer to dogs than people in olfaction. She can even scent diseases — Alzheimer's smells to her like rye bread, diabetes like nail polish, cancer like mushrooms. That's how she realized her husband was sick decades before he died of Parkinson's: His odor had changed from "purple," as she describes it, to "brown." She can sniff Parkinson's in other people just by holding her nose to fragments of their shirts. She's now helping researchers in Manchester to create a diagnostic test.

It's a tragedy that it's so far fallen less to science to recognize the primal power of smell and more to poetry and literature — just think of Patrick Suskind's "Perfume," the haunting story of a man with superhuman olfaction who's led by his smell to serial murder.

But thanks to the pandemic, all of us are now realizing that a healthy smell is intrinsic to our nature and essential to our well-being. Before Covid-19, people who lost their olfaction rarely got much attention from their doctors or sympathy from loved ones. It wasn't seen as a big enough deal, Hopkins told me, which made the suffering worse.

That's over now, which is a positive side effect of the pandemic. Anosmia, hyposmia and parosmia are finally recognized as serious diseases and promising fields of study, with scientific breakthroughs likely to follow. And that's one more reason why we might one day see the pandemic as not only bane, but also boon.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.


Disclaimer: This article first appeared on bloomberg.com and is published by special syndication arrangement.

Bloomberg Special / Top News

COVID-19 / Smell

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Wreckage of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner showing part of its registration "VT-ANB" in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025. REUTERS/Amit Dave
    Air India plane crash: Not all dead, one survivor identified, 204 bodies recovered
  • CA informs King Charles of Bangladesh's reform initiatives
    CA informs King Charles of Bangladesh's reform initiatives
  • News of The Day, 12 JUNE 2025
    News of The Day, 12 JUNE 2025

MOST VIEWED

  • Keir Starmer declines to meet CA Yunus: FT report
    Keir Starmer declines to meet CA Yunus: FT report
  • Wreckage of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner showing part of its registration "VT-ANB" in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025. REUTERS/Amit Dave
    Air India plane crash: Not all dead, one survivor identified, 204 bodies recovered
  • Saifuzzaman Chowdhury. Photo: Collected
    UK crime agency now freezes assets of ex-land minister Saifuzzaman: AJ
  • File Photo of Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus: UNB
    Prof Yunus to receive Harmony Award from King Charles today
  • Infofgraphics: TBS
    DGHS issues 11-point directive to prevent spread of Covid-19 in Bangladesh
  • Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur. TBS Sketch
    Bangladesh considering settlements with tycoons over offshore wealth: Mansur tells FT

Related News

  • 10 more Covid-19 cases reported in country
  • Chattogram prepares hospitals amid rise in Covid cases
  • Govt advises against non-essential travel to India amid rising Covid-19 risks
  • Bangladesh reports 3 more Covid-19 cases
  • Screening tightened at Benapole border to prevent spread of new Covid variant

Features

Among pet birds in the country, lovebirds are the most common, and they are also the most numerous in the haat. Photo: Junayet Rashel

Where feathers meet fortune: How a small pigeon stall became Dhaka’s premiere bird market

1d | Panorama
Illustration: Duniya Jahan/ TBS

Forget Katy Perry, here’s Bangladesh’s Ruthba Yasmin shooting for the moon

2d | Features
File photo of Eid holidaymakers returning to the capital from their country homes/Rajib Dhar

Dhaka: The city we never want to return to, but always do

3d | Features
Photo collage shows political posters in Bagerhat. Photos: Jannatul Naym Pieal

From Sheikh Dynasty to sibling rivalry: Bagerhat signals a turning tide in local politics

5d | Bangladesh

More Videos from TBS

Banks' estimates were wrong: Bangladesh Bank spokesperson

Banks' estimates were wrong: Bangladesh Bank spokesperson

1h | Podcast
What exactly happened to the ill-fated Boeing aircraft?

What exactly happened to the ill-fated Boeing aircraft?

2h | TBS World
Govt to set up Debt Office as loan burden to hit Tk29 lakh cr by FY28

Govt to set up Debt Office as loan burden to hit Tk29 lakh cr by FY28

3h | TBS Insight
Curfew imposed for second night in Los Angeles

Curfew imposed for second night in Los Angeles

3h | TBS World
EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Advertisement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2025
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net