Month: December 2021

Katrina Haydon can’t eat, shower or brush her teeth the same way she used to six months ago because of parosmia, a smell disorder sometimes associated with COVID-19 "long-haulers," or people whose COVID symptoms last long after they test positive for the virus. Parosmia Parosmia is a term used for any kind of distortion of one’s sense of smell — unlike anosmia, a term for one’s loss of their sense of smell. For Haydon, 24, it started with anosmia. She believes she contracted COVID-19 in June of 2021, though she tested negative for the virus. She had mild cold-like symptoms and lost her sense of taste and smell, as many COVID patients do. The anosmia lasted for several weeks before about 70% to 80% of her taste and smell senses returned. A healthcare worker inserts a Covid-1...

People looking for a booster shot of a Covid-19 vaccine probably don’t need to fret about what brand it is: Many combinations of shots are likely to provide strong protection, according to a large new study. In a comparison of seven different vaccine brands, British researchers found that most of them prompted a strong immune response, with the mRNA shots from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech eliciting the largest responses. The study was published on Thursday in The Lancet. “These are welcome data for policymakers,” said Merryn Voysey, a statistician at the University of Oxford who was not involved in the study. “The most significant take-home message here is that there are a large number of excellent boosting options for third doses.” It’s too soon for researchers to say much about how well...