I’m stalked by a smell. It’s lurking in my kitchen, in my bathroom, on my breath. It settles on the surface of my coffee and, sometimes, my skin. I can smell it in my perfume and all the food I eat. Most days I think it’s onion, but it’s also close to garlic, or gas, or garlic cooked on gas. It is not, curiously, a scent I had smelled before October, and yet it’s there all the time, right under my nose. I caught Covid that month, and the smell has plagued me since. Around 65 per cent of people who test positive for coronavirus lose their sense of taste and smell; roughly 8 per cent say these symptoms persist at least five weeks after infection. This means more than 300,000 people in the UK alone have suffered, or are still suffering, from “long haul” Covid smell disorders.
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