When the vaccines arrived, many who had lost their sense of smell or taste after Covid-19 dared to hope that a shot might restore what the virus had taken. A University of Queensland study, drawing on responses from 1,352 vaccinated people across 52 countries, has now answered that hope with measured honesty: for more than nine in ten affected individuals, vaccination changed nothing about their sensory symptoms. The findings neither condemn the vaccine nor vindicate it as a remedy — they simply clarify the boundaries of what it can do, offering those living with persistent loss a clearer map
Covid vaccination doesn't resolve persistent smell and taste loss, UQ study finds
Persistent smell and taste loss after Covid-19 substantially impacts eating, nutrition, food enjoyment and quality of life for affected individuals.
Vaccination won't fix it, but it won't make it worse.
Mark
So the study looked at whether getting vaccinated could fix smell and taste problems that people already had from Covid. Is that right?
Mimi
Exactly. There were anecdotal reports—people saying vaccination had helped them recover their senses. The researchers wanted to see if that was actually happening at scale.
Luke
How many people are we talking about, and how confident are we in the sample?
Mimi
They surveyed 1,352 vaccinated people across 52 countries between 2022 and 2023. About half had experienced smell or taste changes after infection.
Luke
That's a decent sample size, but it's observational, not experimental. They can't prove causation.
Mimi
Right. Hwang was explicit about that. Some people did report improvement, but he said natural recovery over time could explain it just as well.
Mark
What about the people who got worse after vaccination? Was that common?
Mimi
No, worsening was relatively uncommon. The reassuring part is that vaccination didn't make things worse for most people.
Luke
But "most people" is doing a lot of work there. Over 90 percent saw no change at all. That's the headline.
Mimi
True. And that matters because people were worried vaccination might damage their already-compromised senses.
Mark
So what's the practical takeaway for someone living with this?
Mimi
Vaccination won't fix it, but it won't make it worse. And clinicians should start treating parosmia and phantosmia as distinct conditions with different recovery paths, not just lumping everything as "smell loss."
Le Pouls
- Over 90% of people with post-Covid smell or taste dysfunction saw no change in their symptoms after vaccination, deflating widespread anecdotal hopes that the shot might act as a cure.
- The study, spanning 52 countries and 16 months, reveals just how globally pervasive and stubbornly persistent these sensory losses remain — a quiet, ongoing toll of the pandemic.
- Some participants did report improvement after vaccination, but researchers warn the observational design cannot distinguish genuine vaccine benefit from the natural passage of recovery time.
- Crucially, the study eases a significant fear: for most people, vaccination did not worsen already-damaged sensory systems, offering reassurance where anxiety had taken hold.
- Researchers are now urging clinicians to treat parosmia, phantosmia, and taste distortion as distinct conditions with separate recovery trajectories, rather than collapsing them into a single diagnosis.
- For those whose meals have become joyless and whose nutrition has suffered, the study delivers not a remedy but a clearer truth — and in the absence of a cure, clarity itself carries weight.
When the vaccines arrived, many who had lost their sense of smell or taste after Covid-19 dared to hope that a shot might restore what the virus had taken. A University of Queensland study, drawing on responses from 1,352 vaccinated people across 52 countries, has now answered that hope with measured honesty: for more than nine in ten affected individuals, vaccination changed nothing about their sensory symptoms. The findings neither condemn the vaccine nor vindicate it as a remedy — they simply clarify the boundaries of what it can do, offering those living with persistent loss a clearer map of uncertain terrain.
When Covid-19 vaccines became available, people who had lost their sense of smell or taste after infection quietly wondered whether the shot might restore what the virus had taken. Anecdotal stories circulated — someone smelling coffee again after their second dose, another tasting food the way they once had. Dr Daniel Hwang and his team at the University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience set out to test whether those stories reflected something real.
Between May 2022 and August 2023, they gathered responses from 1,352 vaccinated individuals across 52 countries, roughly half of whom had experienced sensory changes after contracting Covid-19. The central question was simple: did vaccination make any difference? For more than 90 percent of participants, the answer was no. Smell and taste remained exactly as they had been since infection — absent, partial, or distorted in the particular ways long Covid can distort them.
Some participants did report improvement after vaccination, and worsening was uncommon. But Hwang was careful not to overreach. Because the study was observational rather than a controlled trial, natural recovery over time could just as plausibly explain those improvements. The vaccine could not be credited — or blamed.
The research also drew attention to the clinical complexity of post-Covid sensory loss. Parosmia, where smells become distorted or repulsive, is a different condition from phantosmia, where smells are perceived without any source. Taste distortion follows its own course. Hwang stressed that clinicians must assess these separately, as each may recover on a different timeline.
For those living with these symptoms, the stakes are deeply personal. Meals lose their pleasure, nutrition suffers, and the social rituals built around food become hollow. Hwang's study offered no cure — but it offered something still valuable: the reassurance that vaccination is unlikely to cause harm, and an honest account of what it cannot fix.
When the Covid-19 vaccines rolled out, some people who had lost their sense of smell or taste after infection wondered if vaccination might restore what the virus had taken. Anecdotal reports circulated—stories of people getting the shot and suddenly smelling coffee again, or tasting food the way they used to. A team at the University of Queensland decided to test whether those stories held up under scrutiny.
Dr Daniel Hwang, leading researchers from the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, designed a multilingual survey to find out. Between May 2022 and August 2023, they collected responses from 1,352 vaccinated people across 52 countries. About half of them reported experiencing changes to their smell or taste after contracting Covid-19. The question was straightforward: did vaccination change anything?
The answer, for the vast majority, was no. More than 90 percent of study participants saw no alteration in their sensory symptoms after receiving the vaccine. Their smell and taste remained as they had been since infection—either partially recovered, completely absent, or distorted in the particular ways that long Covid can distort them. Some people did report improvement following vaccination, and worsening was relatively rare. But Hwang was careful about what the data could actually claim. Because this was an observational study, not a controlled trial, the researchers could not say that vaccination itself caused any improvements they observed. Natural recovery over time might explain those cases just as easily.
The findings offered a kind of reassurance, though perhaps not the kind people had hoped for. Those living with persistent smell or taste problems often worried that vaccination might make their condition worse—a reasonable concern given that the virus had already damaged their sensory systems. The study showed that fear was largely unfounded. For most people, vaccination neither helped nor harmed.
What the research did highlight was the complexity of post-Covid sensory loss. Smell and taste dysfunction comes in different forms. Parosmia—where familiar smells become distorted or unpleasant—is not the same as phantosmia, where people smell things that aren't there. Distorted taste follows its own pattern. Hwang emphasized that clinicians need to assess these conditions separately rather than lumping them together under a single category of sensory loss. Different types of dysfunction may recover on different timelines, and treating them as identical misses important clinical detail.
The human weight of this issue is substantial. For people living with these symptoms, the impact extends far beyond the sensory experience itself. Eating becomes joyless or difficult. Nutrition suffers when food has no taste. Social meals lose their pleasure. The quality of life after Covid-19 can be significantly diminished by the loss or distortion of smell and taste. Hwang's research didn't offer a cure, but it did offer clarity—and for people searching for answers about their own recovery, clarity about what vaccination can and cannot do is its own kind of help.
Citations marquantes
We wanted to investigate anecdotal reports that vaccination helped people with persistent smell or taste problems, but for more than 90 percent of study participants, smell and taste remained unchanged after vaccination.— Dr Daniel Hwang, University of Queensland Institute for Molecular Bioscience
Because this was an observational study, we can't say that vaccination caused improvements, and natural recovery from Covid-related smell and taste problems may also have played a role.— Dr Daniel Hwang
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