Welcome to paging Dr. Gupta, the first one of 2006. Thanks so much for joining us.

Hope you had a great holiday. I took a few days off, but I was also hard at work, hearing your

questions, listening to your comments, and thinking about your concerns. So let's get right to it.

Kira's with us in the new year.

Who do we have first?

Happy New Year, Sanjay.

So even though we're in 2026 now,

our first caller is going to bring us straight back to the early waves of COVID in 2020.

Now, she's calling about a symptom a lot of people had back then, and actually

one that she's still struggling with. Here's the question. Hi there, this is Marlene. I'm calling

from Austin, Texas. I experienced loss of taste and smell in 2020 right after I had COVID for the

first time. And still, to this day cannot taste and I have extremely limited smells.

I pretty much cannot smell food.

I can smell stronger things like perfumes and cleaning products.

My question is, are there any studies of late, anything promising, anything that can give

me some hope for regaining my taste and smell?

I'd like for you also to discuss how it changes your life, how your emotional, social life changes when you can no longer enjoy the

tastes and smells of life.

I'm 74, by the way, in perfectly good health, no diabetes or any other serious health

concerns.

Thank you so much.

Okay, Marlene, first of all, I am sorry that you are

...