It's not just the lungs: The Covid-19 virus attacks like no other 'respiratory' infection

[LiberalArkie]

JUNE 26, 2020

The reports seemed to take doctors by surprise: The “respiratory” virus that causes Covid-19 made some patients nauseous. It left others unable to smell. In some, it caused acute kidney injury.

As the pandemic grew from an outbreak affecting thousands in Wuhan, China, to some 10 million cases and 500,000 deaths globally as of late June, the list of symptoms has also exploded. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention constantly scrambled to update its list in an effort to help clinicians identify likely cases, a crucial diagnostic aid at a time when swab tests were in short supply and typically took (and still take) days to return results. The loss of a sense of smell made the list only in late April.

“For many diseases, it can take years before we fully characterize the different ways that it affects people,” said nephrologist Dan Negoianu of Penn Medicine. “Even now, we are still very early in the process of understanding this disease.”

What they are understanding is that this coronavirus “has such a diversity of effects on so many different organs, it keeps us up at night,” said Thomas McGinn, deputy physician in chief at Northwell Health and director of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research. “It’s amazing how many different ways it affects the body.”

Snip

https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/26/from-nose-to-toe-covid19-virus-attacks-like-no-other-respiratory-infection/

[WhiteTara]

1. My doc thinks it's a blood disease

and travels to the various organs.

[Dave Starsky]

10. I think your doc is probably about right.

We know that clotting factors play a role in its actions and that the organs that are really heavily perfused on a microscopic level (like the lungs and kidneys) get messed up the most.

[WhiteTara]

12. I'm grateful I have a home to hibernate in

and don't have to work. It sounds like one of the scariest diseases ever loosed on the planet.

[onethatcares]

15. you know it,

and people just have to understand that it's not that important to "hang out" or "Have a couple" with them.

This thing will kill you and not look back.

What scares me the most is how fast it acts.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. This coronavirus is a virtual Swiss Army knife in ways it can mess you up

Years away from fully understanding this virus is a true statement.

[BComplex]

4. And whatever "vaccine" trump thinks he's coming up with before the end of the year, isn't one

of which I'd be willing to take the first dose.

Actually, there are several vaccines that are already being tried on thousands of human subjects. Not just in America, but in Europe as well.

[Hortensis]

6. :) I won't be taking any vaccines produced by Trump Corp,

but I'm pretty sure it'd have to be ordered direct mail or some such odd, burning-flag thing. I have no worries that local medical providers will be injecting bleach or Drano.

[LiberalArkie]

11. Probably be the T-Virus

[Hortensis]

13. :) He is the T-virus and we're all already afflicted,

but most of us are expected to recover completely.

[Cirque du So-What]

9. I was active duty Navy ca 1975 when the first swine flu epidemic hit

I was required to get vaccinated, despite reports of people dying from it. Believe me when I say mandatory vaccination is unpleasant in the extreme.

[SoCalNative]

14. I have a cousin who was in the Army

in the early 2000s who was forced to take that Anthrax vaccine. He's now disabled for life, as well as blind.

[winetourdriver01]

3. Nightmare

I had the plague in January. Didn't even know what it was at the time. I do now. My lungs ache, my kidneys ache, and weird sensations in my feet. I'd be surprised if that is all. I'm an old man, but if I was still young, and faced with this, I'd be one pissed off son of a bitch at whoever let this get out of control. Republicans.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. Ugh, so sorry!

[Hortensis]

7. "Republicans." Yes. At least it didn't eat your brain.

[Baclava]

8. Technically, viruses aren't even alive, they use the host cell to change it to whatever it wants

Chemistry sets activated only when opened up after invading host cells.

Covid 19 is essentially a new life form, we have no clue what it will do or become

[ProfessorGAC]

16. Dead On!

The only requirement they meet for life is the ability to reproduce.
But, microbiologists agreed that one criterion was enough to classify as a living thing.
But, only barely, since it can't reproduce absent a live host cell.
More like a clever lump of molecules!

[Baclava]

17. That's a pretty clever molecule, it spread itself from 1 to 10 million new hosts in a few months!