Local 4 editor shares experience after COVID caused loss of smell Ben Bell says he has noticed improvements after getting vaccinated Frank McGeorge, MD, Local 4's Good Health Medical Expert Tags: DETROIT – One of the strangest symptoms of COVID is the loss of taste and smell. Some people have discovered that when their senses return it has been altered. The medical term is parosmia, the condition in which a person’s sense of smell is distorted, generally in a negative way. For example, meat can smell rotten or water can smell like gasoline. Ben Bell is a Local 4 editor and after months of working on stories about COVID, his entire family caught the virus two weeks before Christmas.