COVID-19 Omicron Variant Much Less Likely to Result in Smell Loss

Olfactory research community hardest hit

Did you invest in a smell testing startup aiming to cash in on Covid-related smell loss?

Did you spend hundreds of hours writing an NIH grant on the topic?

Well, you lose.

New study in Lancet (N = 63,002) finds

loss of smell was less common in participants infected during omicron prevalence than during delta prevalence (16.7% vs 52.7%, odds ratio [OR] 0.17; 95% CI 0.16–0.19, p<0.001).

Huuuuge reduction.

And there’s this:

loss of sense of smell, a pathognomonic feature of earlier waves of SARS-CoV-2 infection, now present in less than 20% of cases.

Great news for chefs, vintners, brew masters, perfumers, weed farmers and all of us who love to smell their creations.

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Cristina Menni, Ana M. Valdes, Lorenzo Polidori, Michela Antonelli, Satya Penamakuri, Ana Nogal, Panayiotis Louca, Anna May, Jane C, Figueiredo, Christina Hu, Erika Molteni, Liane Canas, Marc F. Österdahl, Marc Modat, Carole H. Sudre, Ben Fox, Alexander Hammers, Jonathan Wolf, Joan Capdevila, Andrew T. Chan, Sean P. David, Claire J. Steves, Sebastien Ourselin, and Tim D. Spector. (2022). Symptom prevalence, duration, and risk of hospital admission in individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 during periods of omicron and delta variant dominance: a prospective observational study from the ZOE COVID Study. Lancet, published online April 7, 2022.