Months after contracting COVID-19, Breaking Bad and Malcolm in the Middle actor Bryan Cranston has not fully recovered his senses of smell or taste. The loss of taste and smell are not only symptoms of the coronavirus itself, but also have been noted as after-effects that have impacted a number of patients who seem otherwise recovered. During an appearance on Ellen to promote Your Honor, Cranston revealed that he and his wife had contracted COVID-19 early in the pandemic and that they had been lucky enough to get a pretty mild version of the virus. Still, things aren’t completely back to normal.
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When sick, he said, the pair ran a temperature for a little while, had some aches and pains, and that was about it. The longest-lasting impact, apart from his damaged sense of taste and smell, was a fatigue that plagued the two of them for weeks after.
“The only thing that lingered, and still is to this day, is that I lost a percentage of my ability to taste and smell,” Cranston said. “I think about 75 percent has come back, but if someone was brewing coffee and I walk into a kitchen, I cannot smell it.”
Cranston first revealed his diagnosis back in June, when he posted on social media saying that he was donating plasma to help develop treatments for the virus.
“I wanted to announce that I had COVID-19 a little while ago,” Cranston said in a video posted to Instagram. “Very lucky, very mild symptoms and so I thought maybe there’s something I can do. So I started a program (at UCLA Blood & Plasma Center) so hopefully that plasma donation can help some other people.”
In the caption for his post, he continued, “It sounds daunting now that over 150,000 Americans are dead because of it. I was one of the lucky ones. Mild symptoms. I count my blessings and urge you to keep wearing the damn mask, keep washing your hands, and stay socially distant. We can prevail – but ONLY if we follow the rules together. Be well – Stay well.”
Since then, roughly another 100,000 Americans have died as a result of COVID-19, with a recent spike in infection rates leading to tightened restrictions on group gatherings and other public events in recent weeks.
Your Honor, which features Cranston as a judge who helps his son cover up a crime, debuts Sunday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime.
