this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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Iirc you are right about taste with a cold, but with covid the receptors themselves are affected. Loss of smell and taste with covid can linger for months, after the initial infection has cleared up and the airways are open again.
The cells that encase the nerves (receptors) get infected, and become inflamed. This then means the nerve cells cannot transport nutrients along them, and can't send a signal. Eventually that can lead to death of the nerves as well. This is also the way they found COVID to spread through the brain, not through the nerves themselves but the supporting epithelial (I think is the right name) cells.
Source: my professor at the time who was working on the research it told me
I believe it's the nerve pathway between the receptors and the brain that are suspected to be affected. There was a trial where they did a nerve block and it brought the lost taste/smell back, which implies the receptors were unaffected.