How COVID-19 can damage all five senses

Considering how sick he was, Michael Goldsmith seemed like one of the lucky ones, because he survived. After becoming severely ill with COVID-19 in March 2020, he spent 22 days on a ventilator in the ICU. Fortunately, Goldsmith’s condition improved, and he was moved to an intermediate level of care in the hospital as he recovered. That’s when he began to realise he had lost most of his hearing in his left ear. “Anything I did hear had to be loud, and then it sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher,” says Goldsmith, now 35, referencing the nonsensical noises the teacher made in the popular cartoon show. He also had a static sound in that ear that turned out to be tinnitus. After he fully recovered from the infection and went back to his home in Bergenfield, New Jersey, the IT security analyst and father of two saw one doctor after another, seeking relief for his hearing problems. He tried several different prescription medicines, and still he was no better off.