My understanding is that the loss of smell from early COVID tends to be fairly profound. It makes food disgusting. You can burn food on the stove and not smell it even after the fire alarm goes off. And it recovers slowly. It isn't like the usual changes in taste/smell during an infection which are mostly due to the symptoms of rhinitis and clear up when they clear up.
An article from the journal Lung[1] points out that Post-Viral Anosmia isn't exclusive to Covid[1]. It occurred with other viral infections, which is why you can have someone with a bunch of seemingly Covid-like symptoms but not have Covid. There's also this lit review[2] showing that destruction of the olfactory epithelium can occur in Parainfluenza virus, Human Coronavirus, and Rhinovirus.
Yeah, that was my understanding, and is what I had. Was odd to find I could breath just fine, but couldn't smell coffee.
Had a similar thing happen a year ago, where I couldn't even smell menthol rub. Could breath, just couldn't smell. That time, though, I was testing and never got a positive test. I thought, at the time, the general idea was that loss of smell wasn't a thing, anymore. Maybe not?
