How COVID-19 can damage all five senses
The virus that causes the disease disrupts not just smell and taste, but all the ways humans perceive the world. For some, the loss may be permanent.
Considering how sick he was, Michael Goldsmith seemed like one of the lucky ones, because he survived. After becoming severely ill with COVID-19 in March 2020, he spent 22 days on a ventilator in the ICU. Fortunately, Goldsmith’s condition improved, and he was moved to an intermediate level of care in the hospital as he recovered. That’s when he began to realize he had lost most of his hearing in his left ear.
“Anything I did hear had to be loud, and then it sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher,” says Goldsmith, now 35, referencing the nonsensical noises the teacher made in the popular cartoon show.
He also had a static sound in that ear that turned out to be tinnitus. After he
