Agony of post-COVID-19 loss of smell can run deep for some. Get today’s virus developments.
Associated Press, CNN
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The hand of Dr. Clair Vandersteen wafts a tube of odors under the nose of a blindfolded 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 person is taken on a stretcher into the United Memorial Medical Center after going through testing for COVID-19 Thursday, March 19, 2020, in Houston. People were lined up in their cars in a line that stretched over two miles to be tested in the drive-thru testing for coronavirus. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Registered traveling nurse Patricia Carrete, of El Paso, Texas, walks down the hallways during a night shift at a field hospital set up to handle a surge of COVID-19 patients, Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021, in Cranston, R.I. Rhode Island's infection rate has come down since it was the highest in the world two months ago, and many of the field hospital's 335 beds are now empty. On quiet days, the medical staff wishes they could do more. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Rectangles designed to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus by encouraging social distancing line a city-sanctioned homeless encampment at San Francisco's Civic Center on May 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
The family of Larry Hammond wave as a line of cars with friends and family, who could not attend his funeral due to the coronavirus, pass by their home, in New Orleans, Wednesday, April 22, 2020. Hammond was Mardi Gras royalty, and would have had more than a thousand people marching behind his casket in second-line parades. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Karen Speros, 82, waits for a movie to start at a Regal movie theater in Irvine, Calif., Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020, after California Gov. Gavin Newsom relaxed coronavirus restrictions in some counties. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Waitress Aubrey Kelly, right, checks on diners Jack Thomas and Lisa Wilson in the parking lot of Vitello's Italian restaurant, Saturday, May 23, 2020, in Los Angeles. Customers at Vitello's are reserving parking spaces, bringing their own tables and even fine china to enjoy an al fresco takeout meal on the asphalt outside the Italian restaurant. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Jorge Islas Lopez, Consul General of Mexico, and others carry the remains of loved ones following the blessing of the ashes of Mexicans who died from COVID-19 at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Saturday, July 11, 2020, in New York. The ashes were blessed before they were repatriated to Mexico. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby speaks on the scoreboard screen in an empty Sprint Center after canceling the remaining NCAA college basketball games in the Big 12 Conference tournament due to concerns about the coronavirus on March 12, 2020, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Judie Shape, center, who has tested positive for the coronavirus, blows a kiss to her son-in-law, Michael Spencer, left, as Shape's daughter, Lori Spencer, right, looks on, Wednesday, March 11, 2020, as they visit on the phone and look at each other through a window at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., near Seattle. In-person visits were not allowed at the nursing home. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Fans watch from grass beyond the outfield as the Chicago Cubs play the Milwaukee Brewers in a spring training baseball game Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
A doctor, right, assists nurses as they treat a patient delivered by emergency medical personnel from a nursing home showing symptoms of COVID-19 at a hospital in Yonkers, N.Y., April 20, 2020. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Workers wearing personal protective equipment bury bodies during the coronavirus pandemic in a trench on Hart Island in the Bronx borough of New York on Thursday, April 9, 2020. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Bartender Cassandra Paris takes farewell a shot at an early closing time at 169 bar with patrons Monday, March 16, 2020, in New York. New York leaders took a series of unprecedented steps to slow the spread of the coronavirus, including canceling schools and extinguishing most nightlife in New York City. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Nurses and doctors clear the area before defibrillating a patient with COVID-19 who went into cardiac arrest, Monday, April 20, 2020, at a hospital in Yonkers, N.Y. The emergency room team successfully revived the patient. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Empty lanes of the 110 Arroyo Seco Parkway lead to downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, April 26, 2020, during the coronavirus outbreak. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Samuel Nunez cries as he eulogizes his daughter Lydia Nunez, who died from COVID-19, during a funeral service in memory of her at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Los Angeles, July 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
People wait for an H-E-B grocery store to open Tuesday, March 17, 2020, in Spring, Texas. Grocery store executives and city officials reassured the community that plenty of food will be available in their stores and urged people not to stockpile groceries amid coronavirus concerns. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Medical personnel prepare to transport a body from a refrigerated container at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, Wednesday, April 8, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
A man crosses the street in a nearly empty Times Square, which is usually very crowded on a weekday morning in New York, March 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Bodies are wrapped in protective plastic in a holding facility during the coronavirus pandemic at Daniel J. Schaefer Funeral Home, April 2, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
The Rev. Fabian Arias performs an in-home service beside the remains of Raul Luis Lopez who died from COVID-19 the previous month, Saturday, May 9, 2020, in the Corona neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Chaplain Will Runyon holds back tears as he speaks of the hardships and death amid the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak outside of Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Ga., on Monday, April 20, 2020. "There's so much death right now, it piles up on you, it feels heavy," Runyon said. He can feel it in his back, in his feet, like he's dragging something invisible behind him. "It's happening so often, over and over, everyday." (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Emergency medical workers Jacob Magoon, from left, Joshua Hammond and Thomas Hoang lift a patient onto a gurney in Placentia, Calif., Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. EMTs and paramedics have always dealt with life and death — they make split-second decisions about patient care, which hospital to race to, the best and fastest way to save someone — and now they're just a breath away from becoming the patient themselves. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Dr. Mher Onanyan takes a short break while waiting for an X-ray of a COVID-19 patient's lungs at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
President Joe Biden speaks during a visit to the Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021, in Bethesda, Md. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens at right. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Chaplain Kristin Michealsen holds the hand of a deceased COVID-19 patient while talking on the phone with the patient's family member at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. "I have never seen this much of death and suffering," said Michealsen, who has been a chaplain for 13 years. "I often tell families that I'm holding their loved one's hand when they can't and that I am with them when they are dying when they can't be." (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
People walk along the Las Vegas Strip devoid of the usual crowds after casinos were ordered to shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak, Wednesday, March 18, 2020, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Lila Nelson watches as her son, Rise University Preparatory sixth-grader Jayden Amacker, watch an online class in his room at their home in San Francisco, April 9, 2020. When students return to school after a lengthy pandemic-induced absence, the consensus is they will have lost significant academic ground. Still unresolved for governments and educators are the questions of how — or even whether — teachers should try to make up for lost learning. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Transporters Miguel Lopez, right, Noe Meza prepare to move a body of a COVID-19 victim to a morgue at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles on Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Licensed vocational nurse Joselito Florendo, right, administers the COVID-19 vaccine to Michael Chesler at a mass vaccination site set up in the parking lot of Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, Calif., Friday, Jan. 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Vivian Zayas holds onto the walker once belonging to her recently deceased mother Ana Martinez while her family prays before Thanksgiving dinner, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020, in Deer Park, N.Y. Ana Martinez died of coronavirus at 78 on April 1 while recovering at a nursing home from a knee replacement. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Norman Butler, a first time food bank user, and his girlfriend Cheryl Butler wait overnight in their car, along with others lined up to receive food at a distribution point in Metairie, La., Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020. Before the pandemic, Norman, 53, flourished in the tourism-dominated city, working as an airport shuttle and limousine driver, a valet and hotel doorman. Since March when the normally bustling streets turned silent, the only work he's had has been as an Uber driver. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
A customer eats inside the Horseshoe Cafe Friday, May 1, 2020, in Wickenburg, Ariz. A few small businesses reopened in defiance of Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's decision to extend a statewide stay-at-home order for another two weeks. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Farm worker Jorge Americano receives the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in his arm bearing a tattoo depicting Jesus at Tudor Ranch in Mecca, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Romelia Navarro, right, is comforted by nurse Michele Younkin, left, as she weeps while sitting at the bedside of her dying husband, Antonio Navarro, in St. Jude Medical Center's COVID-19 unit in Fullerton, Calif., July 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Dr. Thuan Ong, center, reaches out to UW Medicine Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tim Dellit after Ong spoke with deep emotion about his patients before he received a COVID-19 vaccination at the hospital Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020, in Seattle. Ong's medical team was the first to treat coronavirus patients at long-term care facilities in the area and he said he was thinking about his patients and those who died of the virus. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Deanna Butts reaches for one of the last packages of toilet paper at Target in the Tenleytown area of Washington, Tuesday, March 17, 2020. Supplies are restocked as trucks come in but the coronavirus outbreak is causing a current shortage of some items. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
A homeless person sits on a wheelchair under rainy weather on Sunset Blvd., in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles Monday, April 6, 2020. One population is particularly vulnerable to contracting and spreading the coronavirus: the homeless. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Not to be sniffed at: Agony of post-COVID-19 loss of smell
NICE, France (AP) — The doctor slid a miniature camera into the patient’s right nostril, making her whole nose glow red with its bright miniature light.
“Tickles a bit, eh?” he asked as he rummaged around her nasal passages, the discomfort causing tears to well in her eyes and roll down her cheeks.
The patient, Gabriella Forgione, wasn’t complaining. The 25-year-old pharmacy worker was happy to be prodded and poked at the hospital in Nice, in southern France, to advance her increasingly pressing quest to recover her sense of smell. Along with her sense of taste, it suddenly vanished when she fell ill with COVID-19 in November, and neither has returned.
Being deprived of the pleasures of food and the scents of things that she loves are proving tough on her body and mind. Shorn of odors both good and bad, Forgione is losing weight and self-confidence. Read more:
Here’s an update on all developments. Scroll or swipe further for in-depth coverage.
With sunset remarks and a national moment of silence, President Joe Biden on Monday confronted head-on the country’s once-unimaginable loss — half a million Americans in the COVID-19 pandemic — as he tried to strike a balance between mourning and hope.
UK researchers say its COVID-19 vaccination program has caused hospitalizations to plummet
Britain to slowly ease coronavirus restrictions but pubs, gyms and hairdressers to stay closed for weeks
Russia’s vaccine rollout picks up speed but experts say the campaign is still moving slowly
The housing market was among the very few bright spots for the U.S. economy in the year of the lockdown and Home Depot became its supplier, racking up an unprecedented $132 billion in sales for 2020.
For more summaries and full reports, please select from the articles below. Scroll further for the latest numbers, plus photos from the past year of the pandemic.
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Virus by the numbers
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Photos: In one year, half a million lives lost
Just one year ago, America had no idea. Life in February 2020 still felt normal. Precisely a year later, America is at a horrifying milestone of 500,000 deaths from COVID-19. A look back, in photos:
