COVID-19 loss of smell under study Impact on patients’ lives is profound, doctors say By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press Published: March 2, 2021, 6:00am Share: 9 Photos Dr. Clair Vandersteen, right, wafts a tube of odors under the nose of a patient, Gabriella Forgione, during tests in a hospital in Nice, southern France, Monday, Feb. 8, 2021, to help determine why she has been unable to smell or taste since she contracted COVID-19 in November 2020. A year into the coronavirus pandemic, doctors and researchers are still striving to better understand and treat the accompanying epidemic of COVID-19-related anosmia -- loss of smell -- draining much of the joy of life from an increasing number of sensorially frustrated longer-term sufferers like Forgione. (AP Photo/John Leicester) (John Leicester/Associated Press)