neither is progressives, and you seem to miss point, conservative essentially is position that avoids progressive ideas, and similarly is about least governmental influence over life, where as progressive is opposite being most governmental influence over life (cant get changes without, you see)
conservative in name only is all about progressive ideals of governmental control over society
so on taste loss, does mouth recognize salt/sugar/spices , texture, temperature; if so mouth part of taste is all good, and problem is smell part (yes, you kinda smell food inside your mouth) ,then comes do you smell ok with your nose, if is that also down; https://www.mayoclinic.org/symptoms/loss-of-smell/basics/causes/sym-20050804
if up, then you really should talk with doctor, and likely fast
funny how writer asserts that:
There’s an old saying that I’ve grown quite fond of recently: you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. When most of us “research” an issue, what we are actually doing is: formulating an initial opinion the first time we hear about something, evaluating everything we encounter after that through that lens of our gut instinct, finding reasons to think positively about the portions of the narrative that support or justify our initial opinion, and finding reasons to discount or otherwise dismiss the portions that detract from it.
while failing to see that writer himself does exact this
its influenza type ...aka covid will never cease to exists, and like flu and already existing influenza viruses will just endlessly keep mutating, and infecting those who do not posses stronger than normal immune system
baseline rule on pr-game is "never stop and apologize"