February 9, 2021 • 19 mins
With the current state of the coronavirus pandemic, it seems that the virus is here to stay for the long term. It is easily transmissible, we have new strains, and it will still take time to vaccinate the world. While we may not have the most restrictive measures in place forever, it will eventually be endemic, something we learn to live with and it will also mean big business. Think testing, ventilation for schools and businesses, and masking. Drew Hinshaw, senior reporter at the WSJ, joins us for why covid is here to stay.
Next, the loss of smell and taste that people experience is one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19. For some, it can come back quickly enough, but then steps in a distortion of those familiar smells. Months later people can have this lingering effect leading them to try anything to get it back. One of the techniques that people are using to re-train their brains is called smell training. Brittny Mejia, reporter at the LA Times, joins us for more.
Finally, as more are being vaccinated every day, people are starting to look forward to the little things again. Grocery shopping without worries, dining out, going to the movies, and seeing friends and family more often. One of the bright spots is that since older Americans are up first to get their vaccines, they are the ones ready to go out and get back to normal. Jem Bartholomew, freelance reporter, joins us for all the little joys people are looking for after getting vaccinated.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Tuesday, February nine. I'm Oscar Ramires in Los Angeles
and this is the daily dive. With the current state
of the coronavirus pandemic, it seems that the virus is
here to stay for the long term. It is easily transmissible,
we have new strains, and it will still take time
to vaccinate the world. While we may not have the
(00:21):
most restrictive measures in place forever, it will eventually be endemic,
something we learned to live with, and it will also
mean big business. Drew Hinshaw, senior reporter at The Wall
Street Journal, joins us for why COVID is here to stay. Next.
The loss of smell and taste that people experience is
one of the most common symptoms of COVID nineteen. For some,
(00:42):
it can come back quickly enough, but then steps in
a distortion of those familiar smells. Months later. People can
have this lingering effect, leading them to try anything to
get it back. One of the techniques that people are
using to retrain their brains is called smell train. Brittany Mahia,
reporter at The l A Times, joins us for more. Finally,
as more people are being vaccinated every day, people are
(01:04):
starting to look forward to the little things again, grocery
shopping without worries, dining out, going to the movies, and
seeing friends and family more often. One of the bright
spots is that since older Americans up first to get
their vaccines, they are the ones that are ready to
go back out and get back to normal. Jim Bartholomew,
freelance reporter, joins us for all the little joys people
(01:25):
are looking forward to after getting vaccinated, it's news without
the noise. Let's dine in. You know, you hear a
lot about Australia New Zealand. There are still cases there.
They're low single digits average, but there's still cases, cities
locked down over one or two cases there. You know,
that's the preview of just how even the most successful
(01:45):
countries they don't live a post COVID life. Joining us
now is Drew Hinshaw, senior reporter at the Wall Street Journal.
Thanks for joining us, Drew, Thanks for having me. I
wanted to talk about the current state of the coronavirus,
and it seems like it's gonna be here to stay.
What we're seeing right now is the virus obviously is
very easily transmissible. We have a lot of people that
(02:07):
are asymptomatic that can transmit it as well. There's new
strains of the virus popping up. The vaccination program has
stumbled so far. It's ramping up, but you know, it's
still very slow to take and it's gonna be very
slow to get everybody vaccinated. And what's gonna happen because
of this? It seems like coronavirus will be big business
for many years to come. And then it goes through
(02:29):
everything you know, testing Obviously, the vaccination programs are gonna
be going It's going to impact businesses in different way.
This thing will become endemic, I guess is the proper
term for it. So Drew tell us about this, I
walk us through some of it. Yeah, I think we're
in a kind of paradoxical phase where we are really hoping,
with good reasons to hope that the vaccine drive will
(02:53):
soon see a big decrease in hospitalizations. I see us
won't be so full. You're gonna you know, fewer severe
cases for sure of COVID, especially among you know, the
vaccinated groups. So we're in this productical phase where yeah,
like we've got these vaccines and is if you look
at what's happened in Israel, where cases of hospitalizations have
fallen by like in the past few weeks as they've
(03:16):
been vaccinating so many people. That's hopeful, but there's this
industry that's basically building up around the fact that, well,
COVID might not be as serious in the you know,
sort of medium term future as it was you know,
the past few months, but it's going to be around
for a long time. The number of tests that are
(03:37):
being made is going up, it's not going down. You
would kind of intuitively think, oh, COVID tests are not
going to be a big business in the years. We've
got these vaccines, no one's gonna need them. Well, the
people who are betting their money on this are saying
the opposite. They're saying, you know, there's gonna be need
for millions of tests. People who want to go visit
their family or go to a basketball game or a
concert or something going to want to get a test. Well,
(03:57):
we might not see some of the most restrictive measures
in place. The other part of it, you know, big
business of masks, ventilation, proper ventilation, and buildings for schools
and businesses. You know, this is all far reaching effects
that are going to be part of us for years
to come. We are talking about a disease that it's
going to be in a phase of, to use a
somewhat technical term, vaccine managed intimicity, where we've got this disease,
(04:20):
it's going to be extremely hard to eradicate on a
global scale. Even within countries. Some of the most successful
countries have not actually eliminated it. You know, you hear
a lot about Australia, New Zealand. There are still cases there.
They're low single digits average, but there's still cases, cities
locked down over one or two cases there. You know,
that's a preview of just how even the most successful
countries they don't live a post COVID life. They live
(04:43):
with this sort of thing flickering off in the corner
of society. There's only one virus that has been eradicated completely,
that small positive other diseases like polio, I didn't know
it was just so weird eliminated in the US and
the seventies. In Europe not until two thousand two. And
there's still pockets of Afghanistan and Pakistan which this pops up.
(05:03):
And so you know, this is a respiratory disease COVID
mostly I guess, primarily right, And you know these are
even more difficult to get rid of. One of the
astonishing facts that you know that came out last year
was there was this thing called the Russian flu in
the eighteen nineties. You know, I killed a million people
and one of the common symptoms was people lost their
sense of smell and taste. And last year some researchers
(05:26):
and Denmark did some studies and came to the conclusion
that this thing called the Russian flu is a coronavirus.
And more incredibly, that coronavirus is still with us today.
It's attenuated. It's not as virulent or as harmful as
it used to be. Now we shouldn't assume that sarkov To,
the virus that causes covid, is going to become like weak,
like an ordinary fluid. We shouldn't assume that. But you
(05:49):
know it gives you I do these these respiratory diseases
and and coronavirus is they from what we've seen in history,
they stick around. They're hard to eradicate. Vaccines. You know,
it's going to take a long time before people across
the world have access to this. There's still no vaccine
yet for children, for young children on this, so that
will take some time. And then the treatments beyond that,
we're learning about all these long term effects, you know,
(06:11):
the brain fog, the loss of sense of smell and taste,
as you mentioned, So even treatments for all these things
and the vaccines will have to constantly be improved. This
kind of goes back to that notion of COVID will
be big business for many years to come. Yeah, and
there's a really big problem happening in the Global ice
we called the Global South. Countries that have like no
expectation of getting a vaccine to cover their population this year,
(06:33):
like Nigeria's two six million people, they're getting enough vaccine
to cover maybe eight million people in the next six months.
And you're seeing, like in South Africa, there's this this
new strain and some of the vaccines that we have
are not nearly as effective against it, at least in
preventing like mild cases. They do seem to prevent, or
we can hope that they prevent like death and then
(06:53):
like severe illness. But we're seeing already that there's strains
coming from different parts of the world that are beating
a vaccines in some ways, and there's this gap that
we have to really worry about this like this two
year period where at least two years there's like not
enough vaccines for these countries. And this is sort of
a problem that like nobody has really taking global leadership
of you know, I mean, China donate some vaccines here,
(07:16):
the kind of the multilateral system with a lot of
European donors, they donate some vaccine here. The US hasn't
done much at all on this front. There's like a
real problem with pockets of people who are not going
to get vaccinated this year, and who will get infected
and who knew strains will developing. Drew Hinshaw, senior reporter
at The Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for
joining us. Yeah, thanks to it's great. It's great a chance.
(07:46):
Just like one woman who suffered from a nasmia there
was a fire in her kitchen trash camp and she
didn't realize that was the case until she turned it
and saw it because she couldn't spell the smell. Arning
now was Brittany Mahia, reporter at the l A Times.
Thanks for joining Brittany, Thanks for having me. One of
the most curious things to me throughout this whole pandemic
and COVID nineteen has been the loss of smell and
(08:07):
taste when people get COVID. This happens to a lot
of people. I think it was like over of people
experience some form of this. Now there's other people that
get kind of more severe symptoms of this and it longs.
You know, maybe the smell comes back, but then things
are flipped upside down and everything smells weird, gross smelling things.
I thankfully knock onna what have not had COVID nineteen yet.
(08:29):
So it's very curious to me. But in the latest
story that you wrote, you talk about people months later
are doing anything they can to get it back, seeing
oncologists to get CT scans, seeing ear nose and throat doctors,
smelling essential oils. What's going on with some of these
people that are reporting this. So it's been so interesting.
(08:50):
I feel like loss of smell and taste is one
of the first things that people kind of hit on
is like, oh, I might have COVID. I should probably
get tested. It's like the best, one of the best
indicators actually that you have it. But I don't think
people realize that how long this could drag on. And
so often the people that I was interviewing, they just
felt so out of sorts, like because they had expected
it to come back within a few weeks, and in
(09:10):
the majority of cases it will return in a few weeks.
So in those cases we're dragged on for four months,
six months, people are just like, what can I do?
I I need my sense of smell back. I mean,
there's just so much around sense of smell that we
don't realize how crucial it is. Losing your sense of
smell completely is called anasmia. And then let's say it
comes back, and this is what a lot of people report,
(09:31):
right that strawberries smell like trash or something smells like
burning rubber. You know that the smells are flipped. That's
called parosmia, and this is kind of where people kind
of go crazy over it because it just doesn't come
back the same way. So, you know, and the business
of restoring that smell is booming right now. What are
we seeing on that front? There's clinical trials happening around,
(09:53):
you know, using essential oils and having people smell essential
oils with the intent of it retraining your brain to
remember the smell. So there are so many things happening
kind of across the country because researchers have never had
an opportunity like this to see such I mean, they
estimate that, like the population is suffering kind of this
long term issue of the smell loss or the smell
kind of distortion. So it's giving them this opportunity to
(10:15):
really dig in and do clinical trials and try to
get to the bottom of what's happening here. And at
the same time, you're seeing a lot of people kind
of turning to these essential oils, creating their own smell kits,
are purchasing their own smell kits. The loss of sense
of smell and taste obviously is not specific to COVID.
You know, people with other disorders, other illnesses can get this.
So but as you mentioned, with so many people now
(10:37):
experiencing the same thing, there's more interest than looking into it.
So smell training is one of these things, and as
you mentioned, there's clinical trials starting now where people are
training themselves. I think one of the researchers said, they
let people pick, you know, a certain number of smells
and you kind of smell it. Every day to train yourself.
One of the main spells people pick is smoke. I
(10:58):
guess they're afraid of maybe not being able to sense
if there's a fire around or something right exactly. I
mean that that's the safety aspect of smell for us.
I mean, you smell ghastly, you know, to get out
of the house, like you smell a fire. You know,
obviously you need to get out of that situation. And
I was interviewing people who, like one woman who suffered
from a nasmia, there was a fire in her kitchen
(11:18):
trash can and she didn't realize that was the case
until she turned and saw it because she couldn't smell
the smoke. I mean, it's just kind of crazy, Like
in these situations, it just really is disorienting and it
really kind of puts you a little bit more at risk.
So people were kind of like, oh, let me retrain
on smoke if that's a possibility, because I do want
to be able to tell if there's a fire. Tell
us a few more stories of some of the people
(11:39):
you spoke to. Uh, one woman in particular, Marian Castro Salzman.
I mean, she had an interesting journey through it, and
she lost it. It came back, and she was like
happy that it finally returned, but then she noticed how
off everything was. In many of these cases of people
I was interviewing, including Mariana, it was starting to come back.
They were starting to think, okay, I'm to get my sense,
(12:00):
so back I met like fifty percent now. I mean,
she was able to smell her dog again, and she
cried because she just missed those smells so much. But
then it's kind of like wham, parosnia just hits them.
And in her case, it's like flavored drinks started tasting metallic.
It was rotten cilanthrope onion. All of that tasted off.
Like she stopped eating meat because she couldn't stand the smell,
(12:22):
couldn't stand the taste of it because it was all
just distorted. There were times, honestly, like she was explaining
to me, there were just so many times she had breakdowns,
like she would just go home and cry, and she
was saying, like, you know, I can't live like this,
and so it does take such a toll, you know,
in her case, to just hearing her experience losing weight
because she and often that was coming up. Actually, people
were telling me that they've lost a bunch of weight
because they don't eat the same way that they used
(12:43):
to anymore, because they just can't stand the taste that
they once loved. In her case, did everything return to normal?
I know she was practicing the smell training also didn't
work out for her, so she's tried so many different things,
but she does believe that the smell training has helped.
I feel like her big thing is initially when she
had a prossma, like at its peak, which was like
(13:03):
July August, it was really terrible. All the smells were
just so overwhelming, But she says, I mean she's still
struggling with it even months down the line, but she
feels like the smells aren't as bad as they were
at the start, Like they're still not great, but it's
just kind of like to a lesser extent. As far
as what the experts say is, is that the best
method of trying to retrain your brain the smell training,
(13:26):
or is there anything else that people have used with success?
So that's the main It's so interesting to me because
when I first started reporting this story, I was like
people sniffing essential oils. Really, I just I just immediately
wrote it off because I didn't feel like there was
anything that backed it up. But as I did more
research and seeing studies around it and seeing the fact
that people are doing clinical trials around it and researchers
are really saying, yes, try this because it can't hurt.
(13:48):
I think the mentality is like, you don't know a
percent if this is going to work for you like me.
It might work for some people, it might not work
for everybody, but again it's like kind of what's the
harm in trying? And so I kind of heard mixeds
from experts, but it was interesting to me to kind
of seem like the studies behind it and the fact
that this has been a practice that's been done for
like at least ten years. Brittany Mahia, reporter at the
(14:10):
l A Times, Thank you very much for joining us.
Thanks so much for having me really just finding joy
and the small things that they've really missed, and whether
that's feeling more comfortable in the grocery store or volunteering
at the local food bank. These are the sort of
(14:32):
things people told me that they're really enjoying now they've
had the vaccine. Joining us now is Jim Bartholomew, freelance
reporter for the Wall Street Journal and others. Thanks for
joining us, Jim, great to be here. We are currently
going through the vaccine rollout. You know, it's had a
troubled start. You know, we're increasing the doses that are
(14:52):
being administered a little by little, and you know, hopefully
we can get as many people as we can vaccinated.
Some of the latest news that we've been hearing is
the USU minutes authorized thousands of pharmacies to distribute the
COVID vaccines, So you'll be getting able to get them
at Walmart, CVS, Wallgrounds very soon, just in this effort
to ramp up distribution. But as people are getting these
(15:13):
vaccines already, Jim, you spoke to a lot of people
talking about how they just want to get back to normal.
They're looking forward to doing their normal routines. But they're
also finding joy in the very little things like just
going to the supermarket again and picking out their produce
and whatnot. Reading through the story actually brought a smile
to my face. You know, most of the people that
(15:34):
are getting these vaccines are older people right now. It's
just nice to see that all these older people want
to get back out and get back to it. So Jim,
tell me a little bit more about it. This is
kind of really strange situation really, where those seniors or
healthcare professionals that have been able to navigate somewhat patchy
(15:54):
roll out kind of phase three things most of the
time they founding and friends on vaccine said, so they
can't meet up with them. Bars, restaurants, cinemas, places where
you normally socialized mostly closed. And also, while the science
is clear that the vaccine can stop acute illness, it's
still unclear whether it can stop transmission to the virus.
(16:17):
So people are sort of worried about bringing it back home. So,
as you say, in that circumstance, people are really just
finding joy and in the small things that they've really missed,
and whether that's feeling more comfortable in the grocery store
or volunteering at the local food bank. The's all the
sort of things people told me that they're really enjoying
now they've had the vaccine. You spoke to someone who
(16:37):
he's a retired chef and he's like a blogger, he
cooks at home and all that, and he's like, I
can't wait to get out to restaurants and his wife
hasn't been vaccinated yet, but he's like, I'm gonna go anyways,
I have to get back to it. And I thought
that was just I spoke to Dennis in Florida. He
said he was really looking forward to going to have
a nice greasy burger at a local restaurant which is
(16:58):
open in Florida, for a place that he wouldn't usually
go with his wife, so he was using that opportunity.
He's still planning to sit out on the sort of
semi outdoor patio and then he will still be wearing
a mask and so, and he said, so he doesn't
want to bring anything back, but he's really missed eating
out and he told me he's looking forward to going
and getting that burger. There's a family, the Cooks that
(17:20):
you spoke to also, who are just looking forward to
going on a slipper vacation with their family, with their
children and their grandchildren. I know a lot of that
was stripped away from I mean pretty much the entire
world this past year. But that's why I love these
types of stories. They're looking forward to something. We need
that light at the end of the tunnel and that's
what a lot of these things are. So tell me
a little bit about what the Cooks are doing also.
(17:43):
So this is Pattern Patricia Cook who are in North Carolina,
known to friends as Pattern part. They had a pretty
active lifestyle before the pandemic. They were on their local
trails board and they've volunteered the local food bank. They've
had their shot now and they've gone back to volunteering
at the local food bank, which is great for them.
(18:04):
They're also really looking forward to a family holiday in June,
which is a kind of big event for them, and
so far that's still going ahead. So let's hope it
does for them. And what's the overwhelming sense that you
get from all the people that you spoke to that
have gotten their vaccine. They're they're looking for what's next.
One of the people you spoke to said, Hey, you know,
it's not necessarily joy or celebration. It's relief that they
(18:27):
can kind of start getting back to normal. When I
was reporting this story, I'll admit I expected people to
be popping open the champagne or celebrating in some way,
but but really it was more just a case of
relief and this crisis isn't over for everyone, and people
that have vaccinated, no that and life's not going to
go back to normal for a while. But you know,
(18:48):
they're really feeling relieved that they feel a little bit
more safe and they can enjoy those those little things
in life that we've all missed so much of the
past year. Like I said, I read through the story
and I had a smile on my face. What a
g eight message, What a great feeling that you can
see seniors, right, These are the only people that are
obviously healthcare workers too, but the broader rollout. Right, seniors
are the first ones to be getting these vaccines, and
(19:10):
they're ready to get back out to it. They want
to be out in public again. They want to do it.
Like I said, that's what really made me happy about
this story. Jim Bartholomew, freelance reporter for The Wall Street
Journal and others. Thank you very much for joining us,
closed to be here. That's it for today. Join us
(19:33):
on social media at Daily Dive pod, in book, Twitter,
and Instagram. Give us a comment, give us a rating,
and tell us the stories that you're interested in. Follow
us on I Heart Radio, or subscribe for ever you
get your podcast. This episode of The Daily Divers, produced
by Victor Wright and engineered by Tony Sorrentina. I'm Oscar
Ramirez and this was your daily dive.
It's Tuesday, February nine. I'm Oscar Ramires in Los Angeles
and this is the daily dive. With the current state
of the coronavirus pandemic, it seems that the virus is
here to stay for the long term. It is easily transmissible,
we have new strains, and it will still take time
to vaccinate the world. While we may not have the
(00:21):
most restrictive measures in place forever, it will eventually be endemic,
something we learned to live with, and it will also
mean big business. Drew Hinshaw, senior reporter at The Wall
Street Journal, joins us for why COVID is here to stay. Next.
The loss of smell and taste that people experience is
one of the most common symptoms of COVID nineteen. For some,
(00:42):
it can come back quickly enough, but then steps in
a distortion of those familiar smells. Months later. People can
have this lingering effect, leading them to try anything to
get it back. One of the techniques that people are
using to retrain their brains is called smell train. Brittany Mahia,
reporter at The l A Times, joins us for more. Finally,
as more people are being vaccinated every day, people are
(01:04):
starting to look forward to the little things again, grocery
shopping without worries, dining out, going to the movies, and
seeing friends and family more often. One of the bright
spots is that since older Americans up first to get
their vaccines, they are the ones that are ready to
go back out and get back to normal. Jim Bartholomew,
freelance reporter, joins us for all the little joys people
(01:25):
are looking forward to after getting vaccinated, it's news without
the noise. Let's dine in. You know, you hear a
lot about Australia New Zealand. There are still cases there.
They're low single digits average, but there's still cases, cities
locked down over one or two cases there. You know,
that's the preview of just how even the most successful
(01:45):
countries they don't live a post COVID life. Joining us
now is Drew Hinshaw, senior reporter at the Wall Street Journal.
Thanks for joining us, Drew, Thanks for having me. I
wanted to talk about the current state of the coronavirus,
and it seems like it's gonna be here to stay.
What we're seeing right now is the virus obviously is
very easily transmissible. We have a lot of people that
(02:07):
are asymptomatic that can transmit it as well. There's new
strains of the virus popping up. The vaccination program has
stumbled so far. It's ramping up, but you know, it's
still very slow to take and it's gonna be very
slow to get everybody vaccinated. And what's gonna happen because
of this? It seems like coronavirus will be big business
for many years to come. And then it goes through
(02:29):
everything you know, testing Obviously, the vaccination programs are gonna
be going It's going to impact businesses in different way.
This thing will become endemic, I guess is the proper
term for it. So Drew tell us about this, I
walk us through some of it. Yeah, I think we're
in a kind of paradoxical phase where we are really hoping,
with good reasons to hope that the vaccine drive will
(02:53):
soon see a big decrease in hospitalizations. I see us
won't be so full. You're gonna you know, fewer severe
cases for sure of COVID, especially among you know, the
vaccinated groups. So we're in this productical phase where yeah,
like we've got these vaccines and is if you look
at what's happened in Israel, where cases of hospitalizations have
fallen by like in the past few weeks as they've
(03:16):
been vaccinating so many people. That's hopeful, but there's this
industry that's basically building up around the fact that, well,
COVID might not be as serious in the you know,
sort of medium term future as it was you know,
the past few months, but it's going to be around
for a long time. The number of tests that are
(03:37):
being made is going up, it's not going down. You
would kind of intuitively think, oh, COVID tests are not
going to be a big business in the years. We've
got these vaccines, no one's gonna need them. Well, the
people who are betting their money on this are saying
the opposite. They're saying, you know, there's gonna be need
for millions of tests. People who want to go visit
their family or go to a basketball game or a
concert or something going to want to get a test. Well,
(03:57):
we might not see some of the most restrictive measures
in place. The other part of it, you know, big
business of masks, ventilation, proper ventilation, and buildings for schools
and businesses. You know, this is all far reaching effects
that are going to be part of us for years
to come. We are talking about a disease that it's
going to be in a phase of, to use a
somewhat technical term, vaccine managed intimicity, where we've got this disease,
(04:20):
it's going to be extremely hard to eradicate on a
global scale. Even within countries. Some of the most successful
countries have not actually eliminated it. You know, you hear
a lot about Australia, New Zealand. There are still cases there.
They're low single digits average, but there's still cases, cities
locked down over one or two cases there. You know,
that's a preview of just how even the most successful
countries they don't live a post COVID life. They live
(04:43):
with this sort of thing flickering off in the corner
of society. There's only one virus that has been eradicated completely,
that small positive other diseases like polio, I didn't know
it was just so weird eliminated in the US and
the seventies. In Europe not until two thousand two. And
there's still pockets of Afghanistan and Pakistan which this pops up.
(05:03):
And so you know, this is a respiratory disease COVID
mostly I guess, primarily right, And you know these are
even more difficult to get rid of. One of the
astonishing facts that you know that came out last year
was there was this thing called the Russian flu in
the eighteen nineties. You know, I killed a million people
and one of the common symptoms was people lost their
sense of smell and taste. And last year some researchers
(05:26):
and Denmark did some studies and came to the conclusion
that this thing called the Russian flu is a coronavirus.
And more incredibly, that coronavirus is still with us today.
It's attenuated. It's not as virulent or as harmful as
it used to be. Now we shouldn't assume that sarkov To,
the virus that causes covid, is going to become like weak,
like an ordinary fluid. We shouldn't assume that. But you
(05:49):
know it gives you I do these these respiratory diseases
and and coronavirus is they from what we've seen in history,
they stick around. They're hard to eradicate. Vaccines. You know,
it's going to take a long time before people across
the world have access to this. There's still no vaccine
yet for children, for young children on this, so that
will take some time. And then the treatments beyond that,
we're learning about all these long term effects, you know,
(06:11):
the brain fog, the loss of sense of smell and taste,
as you mentioned, So even treatments for all these things
and the vaccines will have to constantly be improved. This
kind of goes back to that notion of COVID will
be big business for many years to come. Yeah, and
there's a really big problem happening in the Global ice
we called the Global South. Countries that have like no
expectation of getting a vaccine to cover their population this year,
(06:33):
like Nigeria's two six million people, they're getting enough vaccine
to cover maybe eight million people in the next six months.
And you're seeing, like in South Africa, there's this this
new strain and some of the vaccines that we have
are not nearly as effective against it, at least in
preventing like mild cases. They do seem to prevent, or
we can hope that they prevent like death and then
(06:53):
like severe illness. But we're seeing already that there's strains
coming from different parts of the world that are beating
a vaccines in some ways, and there's this gap that
we have to really worry about this like this two
year period where at least two years there's like not
enough vaccines for these countries. And this is sort of
a problem that like nobody has really taking global leadership
of you know, I mean, China donate some vaccines here,
(07:16):
the kind of the multilateral system with a lot of
European donors, they donate some vaccine here. The US hasn't
done much at all on this front. There's like a
real problem with pockets of people who are not going
to get vaccinated this year, and who will get infected
and who knew strains will developing. Drew Hinshaw, senior reporter
at The Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for
joining us. Yeah, thanks to it's great. It's great a chance.
(07:46):
Just like one woman who suffered from a nasmia there
was a fire in her kitchen trash camp and she
didn't realize that was the case until she turned it
and saw it because she couldn't spell the smell. Arning
now was Brittany Mahia, reporter at the l A Times.
Thanks for joining Brittany, Thanks for having me. One of
the most curious things to me throughout this whole pandemic
and COVID nineteen has been the loss of smell and
(08:07):
taste when people get COVID. This happens to a lot
of people. I think it was like over of people
experience some form of this. Now there's other people that
get kind of more severe symptoms of this and it longs.
You know, maybe the smell comes back, but then things
are flipped upside down and everything smells weird, gross smelling things.
I thankfully knock onna what have not had COVID nineteen yet.
(08:29):
So it's very curious to me. But in the latest
story that you wrote, you talk about people months later
are doing anything they can to get it back, seeing
oncologists to get CT scans, seeing ear nose and throat doctors,
smelling essential oils. What's going on with some of these
people that are reporting this. So it's been so interesting.
(08:50):
I feel like loss of smell and taste is one
of the first things that people kind of hit on
is like, oh, I might have COVID. I should probably
get tested. It's like the best, one of the best
indicators actually that you have it. But I don't think
people realize that how long this could drag on. And
so often the people that I was interviewing, they just
felt so out of sorts, like because they had expected
it to come back within a few weeks, and in
(09:10):
the majority of cases it will return in a few weeks.
So in those cases we're dragged on for four months,
six months, people are just like, what can I do?
I I need my sense of smell back. I mean,
there's just so much around sense of smell that we
don't realize how crucial it is. Losing your sense of
smell completely is called anasmia. And then let's say it
comes back, and this is what a lot of people report,
(09:31):
right that strawberries smell like trash or something smells like
burning rubber. You know that the smells are flipped. That's
called parosmia, and this is kind of where people kind
of go crazy over it because it just doesn't come
back the same way. So, you know, and the business
of restoring that smell is booming right now. What are
we seeing on that front? There's clinical trials happening around,
(09:53):
you know, using essential oils and having people smell essential
oils with the intent of it retraining your brain to
remember the smell. So there are so many things happening
kind of across the country because researchers have never had
an opportunity like this to see such I mean, they
estimate that, like the population is suffering kind of this
long term issue of the smell loss or the smell
kind of distortion. So it's giving them this opportunity to
(10:15):
really dig in and do clinical trials and try to
get to the bottom of what's happening here. And at
the same time, you're seeing a lot of people kind
of turning to these essential oils, creating their own smell kits,
are purchasing their own smell kits. The loss of sense
of smell and taste obviously is not specific to COVID.
You know, people with other disorders, other illnesses can get this.
So but as you mentioned, with so many people now
(10:37):
experiencing the same thing, there's more interest than looking into it.
So smell training is one of these things, and as
you mentioned, there's clinical trials starting now where people are
training themselves. I think one of the researchers said, they
let people pick, you know, a certain number of smells
and you kind of smell it. Every day to train yourself.
One of the main spells people pick is smoke. I
(10:58):
guess they're afraid of maybe not being able to sense
if there's a fire around or something right exactly. I
mean that that's the safety aspect of smell for us.
I mean, you smell ghastly, you know, to get out
of the house, like you smell a fire. You know,
obviously you need to get out of that situation. And
I was interviewing people who, like one woman who suffered
from a nasmia, there was a fire in her kitchen
(11:18):
trash can and she didn't realize that was the case
until she turned and saw it because she couldn't smell
the smoke. I mean, it's just kind of crazy, Like
in these situations, it just really is disorienting and it
really kind of puts you a little bit more at risk.
So people were kind of like, oh, let me retrain
on smoke if that's a possibility, because I do want
to be able to tell if there's a fire. Tell
us a few more stories of some of the people
(11:39):
you spoke to. Uh, one woman in particular, Marian Castro Salzman.
I mean, she had an interesting journey through it, and
she lost it. It came back, and she was like
happy that it finally returned, but then she noticed how
off everything was. In many of these cases of people
I was interviewing, including Mariana, it was starting to come back.
They were starting to think, okay, I'm to get my sense,
(12:00):
so back I met like fifty percent now. I mean,
she was able to smell her dog again, and she
cried because she just missed those smells so much. But
then it's kind of like wham, parosnia just hits them.
And in her case, it's like flavored drinks started tasting metallic.
It was rotten cilanthrope onion. All of that tasted off.
Like she stopped eating meat because she couldn't stand the smell,
(12:22):
couldn't stand the taste of it because it was all
just distorted. There were times, honestly, like she was explaining
to me, there were just so many times she had breakdowns,
like she would just go home and cry, and she
was saying, like, you know, I can't live like this,
and so it does take such a toll, you know,
in her case, to just hearing her experience losing weight
because she and often that was coming up. Actually, people
were telling me that they've lost a bunch of weight
because they don't eat the same way that they used
(12:43):
to anymore, because they just can't stand the taste that
they once loved. In her case, did everything return to normal?
I know she was practicing the smell training also didn't
work out for her, so she's tried so many different things,
but she does believe that the smell training has helped.
I feel like her big thing is initially when she
had a prossma, like at its peak, which was like
(13:03):
July August, it was really terrible. All the smells were
just so overwhelming, But she says, I mean she's still
struggling with it even months down the line, but she
feels like the smells aren't as bad as they were
at the start, Like they're still not great, but it's
just kind of like to a lesser extent. As far
as what the experts say is, is that the best
method of trying to retrain your brain the smell training,
(13:26):
or is there anything else that people have used with success?
So that's the main It's so interesting to me because
when I first started reporting this story, I was like
people sniffing essential oils. Really, I just I just immediately
wrote it off because I didn't feel like there was
anything that backed it up. But as I did more
research and seeing studies around it and seeing the fact
that people are doing clinical trials around it and researchers
are really saying, yes, try this because it can't hurt.
(13:48):
I think the mentality is like, you don't know a
percent if this is going to work for you like me.
It might work for some people, it might not work
for everybody, but again it's like kind of what's the
harm in trying? And so I kind of heard mixeds
from experts, but it was interesting to me to kind
of seem like the studies behind it and the fact
that this has been a practice that's been done for
like at least ten years. Brittany Mahia, reporter at the
(14:10):
l A Times, Thank you very much for joining us.
Thanks so much for having me really just finding joy
and the small things that they've really missed, and whether
that's feeling more comfortable in the grocery store or volunteering
at the local food bank. These are the sort of
(14:32):
things people told me that they're really enjoying now they've
had the vaccine. Joining us now is Jim Bartholomew, freelance
reporter for the Wall Street Journal and others. Thanks for
joining us, Jim, great to be here. We are currently
going through the vaccine rollout. You know, it's had a
troubled start. You know, we're increasing the doses that are
(14:52):
being administered a little by little, and you know, hopefully
we can get as many people as we can vaccinated.
Some of the latest news that we've been hearing is
the USU minutes authorized thousands of pharmacies to distribute the
COVID vaccines, So you'll be getting able to get them
at Walmart, CVS, Wallgrounds very soon, just in this effort
to ramp up distribution. But as people are getting these
(15:13):
vaccines already, Jim, you spoke to a lot of people
talking about how they just want to get back to normal.
They're looking forward to doing their normal routines. But they're
also finding joy in the very little things like just
going to the supermarket again and picking out their produce
and whatnot. Reading through the story actually brought a smile
to my face. You know, most of the people that
(15:34):
are getting these vaccines are older people right now. It's
just nice to see that all these older people want
to get back out and get back to it. So Jim,
tell me a little bit more about it. This is
kind of really strange situation really, where those seniors or
healthcare professionals that have been able to navigate somewhat patchy
(15:54):
roll out kind of phase three things most of the
time they founding and friends on vaccine said, so they
can't meet up with them. Bars, restaurants, cinemas, places where
you normally socialized mostly closed. And also, while the science
is clear that the vaccine can stop acute illness, it's
still unclear whether it can stop transmission to the virus.
(16:17):
So people are sort of worried about bringing it back home. So,
as you say, in that circumstance, people are really just
finding joy and in the small things that they've really missed,
and whether that's feeling more comfortable in the grocery store
or volunteering at the local food bank. The's all the
sort of things people told me that they're really enjoying
now they've had the vaccine. You spoke to someone who
(16:37):
he's a retired chef and he's like a blogger, he
cooks at home and all that, and he's like, I
can't wait to get out to restaurants and his wife
hasn't been vaccinated yet, but he's like, I'm gonna go anyways,
I have to get back to it. And I thought
that was just I spoke to Dennis in Florida. He
said he was really looking forward to going to have
a nice greasy burger at a local restaurant which is
(16:58):
open in Florida, for a place that he wouldn't usually
go with his wife, so he was using that opportunity.
He's still planning to sit out on the sort of
semi outdoor patio and then he will still be wearing
a mask and so, and he said, so he doesn't
want to bring anything back, but he's really missed eating
out and he told me he's looking forward to going
and getting that burger. There's a family, the Cooks that
(17:20):
you spoke to also, who are just looking forward to
going on a slipper vacation with their family, with their
children and their grandchildren. I know a lot of that
was stripped away from I mean pretty much the entire
world this past year. But that's why I love these
types of stories. They're looking forward to something. We need
that light at the end of the tunnel and that's
what a lot of these things are. So tell me
a little bit about what the Cooks are doing also.
(17:43):
So this is Pattern Patricia Cook who are in North Carolina,
known to friends as Pattern part. They had a pretty
active lifestyle before the pandemic. They were on their local
trails board and they've volunteered the local food bank. They've
had their shot now and they've gone back to volunteering
at the local food bank, which is great for them.
(18:04):
They're also really looking forward to a family holiday in June,
which is a kind of big event for them, and
so far that's still going ahead. So let's hope it
does for them. And what's the overwhelming sense that you
get from all the people that you spoke to that
have gotten their vaccine. They're they're looking for what's next.
One of the people you spoke to said, Hey, you know,
it's not necessarily joy or celebration. It's relief that they
(18:27):
can kind of start getting back to normal. When I
was reporting this story, I'll admit I expected people to
be popping open the champagne or celebrating in some way,
but but really it was more just a case of
relief and this crisis isn't over for everyone, and people
that have vaccinated, no that and life's not going to
go back to normal for a while. But you know,
(18:48):
they're really feeling relieved that they feel a little bit
more safe and they can enjoy those those little things
in life that we've all missed so much of the
past year. Like I said, I read through the story
and I had a smile on my face. What a
g eight message, What a great feeling that you can
see seniors, right, These are the only people that are
obviously healthcare workers too, but the broader rollout. Right, seniors
are the first ones to be getting these vaccines, and
(19:10):
they're ready to get back out to it. They want
to be out in public again. They want to do it.
Like I said, that's what really made me happy about
this story. Jim Bartholomew, freelance reporter for The Wall Street
Journal and others. Thank you very much for joining us,
closed to be here. That's it for today. Join us
(19:33):
on social media at Daily Dive pod, in book, Twitter,
and Instagram. Give us a comment, give us a rating,
and tell us the stories that you're interested in. Follow
us on I Heart Radio, or subscribe for ever you
get your podcast. This episode of The Daily Divers, produced
by Victor Wright and engineered by Tony Sorrentina. I'm Oscar
Ramirez and this was your daily dive.
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