Raphael Stevens

Children who have recovered from Covid-19 may experience a distorted sense of smell afterward, which could affect the foods they will eat, according to experts in the U.K.
“Parosmia” — when people experience strange and often unpleasant smell distortions — is relatively common after a Covid infection.
Around 250,000 adults in the U.K. are estimated to have suffered parosmia as a result of having Covid.

A child wears a KN95 protective mask for kids arranged in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022.
Tiffany Hagler-Geard | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Children who have recovered from Covid-19 may experience a distorted sense of smell afterward, which could affect the foods they will eat, according to experts in the U.K.
“Parosmia” — when people experience strange and often unpleasant smell distortions — is relatively common after a Covid infection, with 250,000 adults in the U.K. estimated to have suffered parosmia as a result of having the coronavirus.

Experts say it could be a reason why children who have recovered from Covid might find it hard to eat foods they once loved.
Instead of smelling a lemon, for example, someone suffering from parosmia may smell rotting cabbage, or chocolate may smell like gasoline.
Leading U.K. smell expert Carl Philpott, a professor at the University of East Anglia’s Norwich Medical School, and charity Fifth Sense released guidance on Tuesday to help parents and health-care professionals better recognize the disorder and distinguish it from “fussy eating.”
“Parosmia is thought to be a product of having less smell receptors working, which leads to only being able to pick up some of the components of a smell mixture,'” Philpott commented Tuesday.
“We know that an estimated 250,000 adults in the U.K. have suffered parosmia as a result of a Covid infection but in the last few months, particularly since Covid started sweeping through classrooms last September, we’ve become more and more aware that it’s affecting children too.”

He added: “In many cases the condition is putting children off their food, and many may be finding it difficult to eat at all.”

Philpott said the condition hadn’t really been recognized by medical professionals until now, with many assuming that children were being difficult eaters without realizing there was an underlying problem.
“For some children — and particularly those who already had issues with food, or with other conditions such as autism — it can be really difficult. I expect there are a lot of parents at their wits’ end and really worried,” he said.
Fifth Sense Chairman and founder Duncan Boak said the charity had received anecdotal evidence from parents that children are “really struggling” with their food after Covid.
“We’ve heard from some parents whose children are suffering nutritional problems and have lost weight, but doctors have put this down to just fussy eating. We’re really keen to share more information on this issue with the healthcare profession so they’re aware that there is a wider problem here,” Boak said.

What parents can try

When the Covid pandemic took hold in early 2020, people were told to watch for a number of symptoms, including a fever, constant cough and a loss of taste or smell. The latter was seen as a tell-tale symptom of the virus.
As new Covid variants have emerged, however, the symptoms associated with different strains have changed, with the delta and omicron variants leading some people to experience symptoms more akin to a cold.

Still, many people have reported that their sense of smell or taste has remained distorted after a Covid infection. This could be due to the longer-lasting condition called “long Covid,” which is still not fully understood by scientists.
In their guidance to professionals and parents, Professor Philpott and Fifth Sense said that children should be listened to and believed. They also said that “parents can help by keeping a diary to make a note of foods that are safe and those that are triggers.”
Philpott said there are a number of common triggers for parosmia, such as the smell of cooking meat and onions or garlic, as well as fresh coffee.
“Parents and healthcare professionals should encourage children to try different foods with less strong flavours such as pasta, bananas, or mild cheese — to see what they can cope with or enjoy. Vanilla or flavour-free protein and vitamin milkshakes can help children get the nutrients they need without the taste,” he said.
If all else fails, Philpott said, children could use “a soft nose clip or hold their nose while eating to help them block out the flavours.”

Finally, he said children and adults alike should consider “smell training” — which has emerged as a simple and side-effect-free treatment option for various causes of smell loss.
Smell training involves sniffing at least four different odors — for example, eucalyptus, lemon, rose, cinnamon, chocolate, coffee, or lavender — twice a day, every day, for several months.
“Children should use smells that they are familiar with and are not parosmia triggers. In younger children this might not be helpful, but in teenagers this might be something they can tolerate,” Philpott noted.

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The U.S. has reported nearly 800,000 cases per day on average over the past week, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
That’s more than three times the level seen during last winter’s previous record.
But there are signs of a possible turning point in the surge in places hit early by omicron.

A woman is getting a Covid-19 test at a drive through Covid-19 testing center as hundreds of cars and pedestrians line up to get Covid-19 test before Christmas holiday season in North Bergen of New Jersey, United States on December 22, 2021 as Omicron rises around the country.
Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Following weeks of soaring infections, the latest Covid surge is showing signs of slowing in a handful of areas hit earliest by the omicron variant — offering a glimmer of hope that this wave is starting to ease.
The U.S. has reported an average of nearly 800,000 cases per day over the past week, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, more than three times the level seen during last winter’s previous record. But in a handful of states and cities, particularly on the East Coast, cases appear to have plateaued or fallen in recent days.

In New York, the seven-day average of daily new cases has been declining since hitting a record high of 85,000 per day on Jan. 9, according to Hopkins data. Cases there doubled during a number of seven-day periods in late December and early January, but are down sharply from last week to an average of 51,500. In New York City, average daily cases have fallen by 31% over the past week, state health department data shows.
“There will come a time when we can say it’s all over,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a press conference Friday. “We’re not there yet, but boy, it’s on the horizon and we’ve waited a long time for that.”

New York is still reporting a high level of daily infections, ranking 15th out of all states, according to a CNBC analysis of population-adjusted case counts, down from the second-most just a few days ago. New Jersey also recently fell out of the top five, now ranking 20th, as the state has seen a 32% drop in average daily cases over the past week. 
In late December, Washington, D.C. had the highest number of Covid infections on a per capita basis than any other state, peaking at an average of 2,500 per day. That’s since dropped to 1,700, the data shows.
And in neighboring Maryland, daily infections hit a pandemic high on Jan. 8 but are down 27% from a week ago.

In Illinois, Dr. Khalilah Gates, assistant dean of medical education at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said you can “already kind of feel” the stabilization of hospitalizations. As of Sunday, the state reported a seven-day average of about 7,200 patients hospitalized with Covid, according to Department of Health and Human Services data, up 4% over the past week, a more modest increase than the 30% weekly growth seen just two weeks ago.
“There’s not that influx that we initially had in the beginning of the surge and things are kind of just puttering,” she said. “And if that lasts for, you know, five to seven consecutive days, I think you start to breathe a little bit easier saying, OK, like we’ve kind of gotten over this surge, got through this surge as well.”
Cases are also falling in South Africa and the United Kingdom, which are being closely watched as potential indications of what could happen in the U.S since they both experienced earlier surges. Hopkins data shows average daily infections are down 80% in South Africa from its peak on Dec. 17 and 42% in the U.K. from that country’s peak on Jan. 5, though there is no guarantee the U.S. will follow the same trajectory.
The American population has different vaccination rates, levels of previous exposure to the virus and degrees of underlying health conditions, so the trajectory of omicron could vary.
To be sure, cases are rising in the majority of states with 23 reporting record-high infection levels as of Sunday, Hopkins data shows. And even so, U.S. cases are undercounted due to the availability of at-home test kits for which results are not typically reported to state or federal agencies.

That rise is particularly visible in Western states, where average daily cases are showing some signs of slowing but have still grown 14% over the past week. That has led to a “skyrocketing” of Covid admissions at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Los Angeles, Dr. Michael Daignault said on CNBC’s Worldwide Exchange Friday morning.
“We had that delta surge, it was a surge and then a plateau and then the omicron kind of took off from that delta crest,” said Daignault, an emergency physician at the hospital.
The increase prompted New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday to issue emergency orders to combat the fresh surge of cases.

A steep spike

Experts predict the omicron wave will fall almost as quickly as it rose, leaving the U.S. with relatively low cases of Covid sometime in February or March, with cities hit the earliest likely reaching that point sooner.
While the threat of a new variant could always change the forecasts, it’s possible Americans could see a bit of a reprieve as a large swath of the population retains some immunity from recent infection.
“Sometime towards the beginning of March, mid-March, we should be in a very good position,” said Ali Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. “April, May, we’re going to have very few cases reported.”
Still, just how quickly cases fall once they reach their peak depends on how much a community abides by public health measures after that period.
“It depends on how high the peak is. And on whether or not when people see the case count numbers coming down, if they kind of loosen things up,” said Aubree Gordon, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Hospitals overwhelmed

There is a growing body of evidence that the omicron variant, while more contagious, doesn’t make people as sick as the delta variant.
Still, there are a record 156,000 Americans in U.S. hospitals with Covid, according to a seven-day average of HHS data, up 17% over the past week. A significant portion of Covid hospitalizations appear to stem from people admitted for other reasons who test positive for the virus once they’re in a facility. 
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” last week that about half of the city’s hospitalizations are people who have been diagnosed after they were admitted for something else. NY Gov. Hochul on Sunday reported 42% of the New York’s hospitalized Covid patients were admitted for something other than the virus.
Even if the omicron variant causes less severe disease, hospitals can still be strained due to the high volume of patients combined with staffing shortages.
“The rate limiting factors are still the incredible speed of this variant, the amount of patients that are coming to the ER or requiring admission,” said Daignault, the L.A. doctor. “And even if we peak at the end of January, you still have the back end of that surge for the rest of February.”
Daignault suspects that many of the ICU patients in his hospital right now are sick with the more virulent delta variant. Cases of delta may also be what is contributing to a rise in daily Covid deaths in L.A., he said. Still, the CDC recently estimated omicron now accounts for 95% of new cases.
Nationwide, cases and hospitalizations have surpassed last winter’s peak, but there are about 87% as many ICU patients with Covid. The U.S. is reporting a seven-day average of nearly 1,800 Covid deaths per day, according to Hopkins data, which is on the rise but roughly half of the peak levels seen at this time last year, before vaccines were widely available.

While vaccines, particularly without a booster shot, appear to offer less protection against infection from omicron, they do seem to be holding up against severe disease and death, for which they were originally designed to prevent. So while that means vaccinated people may be contributing to the rise in cases, the unvaccinated are really the ones driving hospitalizations.
Still, the high transmissibility means many healthcare workers have become infected with the virus and forced to isolate, driving some hospitals to their limits even sooner.
Though a peak in cases provides a light at the end of the tunnel of this surge, hospitalization and death counts lag behind increases in infections. The full effects of the omicron spike are yet to be seen.
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WATCH: Signs of Covid hitting a peak in the Northeast

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It is still too soon to say whether omicron marks the final wave of the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci has said.
Speaking via videoconference at The Davos Agenda, President Biden’s chief medical advisor said it remains an “open question.”
“That would only be the case if we don’t get another variant that eludes the immune response,” he said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House Chief Medical Advisor and Director of the NIAID, responds to questions from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) at a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on January 11, 2022 in Washington, D.C.
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White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday it is still too soon to predict whether the omicron Covid-19 variant will mark the final wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It is an open question whether it will be the live virus vaccination that everyone is hoping for,” Fauci said via videoconference at The Davos Agenda virtual event.

The omicron variant, while highly transmissible, has been found to be less severe than previous variants, sparking hope that it could hasten the end of the pandemic. Yet, Fauci said there is still no guarantee.
“I would hope that that’s the case. But that would only be the case if we don’t get another variant that eludes the immune response of the prior variant,” he said.

Still, even if omicron does emerge as the final variant of Covid-19, it is unlikely that it would mean endgame for the virus entirely, Fauci said. Rather, it will remain present in society at an endemic level.
“Control means you have it present but it is present at a level that does not disrupt society,” Fauci said. “That’s my definition of what endemicity would mean.”
At that stage, public health measures such as mask-wearing would no longer be required, and society could return to some level of pre-Covid normality, he said.

“It’s not going to be that you’ll eliminate this disease completely. But hopefully, it will be at such a low level that it doesn’t disrupt our normal social, economic and other interactions with each other. To me, that’s what the new normal is.”

‘Too early’ to call Covid endemic

Fauci was speaking alongside a panel of public health experts who agreed that omicron will likely become the dominant strain of Covid-19 globally in 2022. However, they were divided on whether it would be the final strain.
“It is indeed too early really to call it endemic. There is a high probability that we will have a new variant,” said Annelies Wilder-Smith, professor of emerging infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
A new variant is likely to be less severe, looking at previous versions, but it remains important to prepare for the worst, she said.
Richard Hatchett, chief executive officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations, was more optimistic, however.
“Omicron will sweep the world. It may hopefully sweep out other variants,” he said, adding that the virus will likely reach a point of equilibrium, where it becomes an annual epidemic, much like the seasonal flu.”
— Don’t miss Geoff Cutmore’s discussion with ECB President Christine Lagarde, Brazilian Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, IMF MD Kristalina Georgieva and India’s Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati at 7.30 a.m. ET Friday. They’ll be discussing the “Global Economic Outlook” at the Davos Agenda. You can watch live here. More