How coronavirus affects the entire body

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

The team at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City collected reports from medical trams worldwide to develop comprehensive overview of Covid-19 illness: Need to think of COVID-19 as a multisystem disease

CNN

Maggie Fox

July 10, 2020

How coronavirus affects the entire body

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Coronavirus damages not only the lungs, but the kidneys, liver, heart, brain and nervous system, skin and gastrointestinal tract, doctors said Friday in a review of reports about Covid-19 patients.

...Their comprehensive picture shows the coronavirus attacks virtually every major system in the human body, directly damaging organs and causing the blood to clot, the heart to lose its healthy rhythm, the kidneys to shed blood and protein and the skin to erupt in rashes. It causes headaches, dizziness, muscle aches, stomach pain and other symptoms along with classic respiratory symptoms like coughing and fever...

...Much of the damage wrought by the virus appears to come because of its affinity for a receptor — a kind of molecular doorway into cells — called ACE2. Cells lining the blood vessels, in the kidneys, the liver ducts, the pancreas, in the intestinal tract and lining the respiratory tract all are covered with ACE2 receptors, which the virus can use to grapple and infect cells, the Columbia team wrote in their review, published in the journal Nature Medicine...

...Blood clotting effects appear to be caused by several different mechanisms: direct damage of the cells lining the blood vessels and interference with the various clotting mechanisms in the blood itself. Low blood oxygen caused by pneumonia can make the blood more likely to clot, the researchers said.

.... "COVID-19 patients can be intubated for two to three weeks; a quarter require ventilators for 30 or more days," Gupta said.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/health/coronavirus-entire-body-effects-columbia/index.html

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Specializes in Psych.

The flu does the same thing...

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The influenza virus primarily attacks your respiratory tract: your nose, throat, and the tubes that lead to your lungs. So symptoms like a runny nose, a phlegmy cough, and a sore throat all make a lot of sense. But the flu is so much more than that. Though other organs in the body are not the primary target, the virus still has an effect on them. Your muscles ache, your head hurts, and your appetite goes down, among other things. Ironically, almost all of these symptoms have less to do with the virus itself than with your immune response to them. Unfortunately, the very defense mechanisms you have in place to get rid of the flu are the reason you feel so miserable as you recover.

https://www.popsci.com/what-flu-does-immune-system-body/#:~:text=The influenza virus primarily attacks,so much more than that.

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Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.

Comparing COVID-19 with the flu: More differences than similarities

Eduardo Sanchez, M.D., M.P.H., Chief, Center for Health Metrics and Evaluation

Many have compared seasonal influenza (the flu) with COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. This is understandable, to some degree, because to understand the new or unknown we sometimes compare it with something known or familiar and seek similarities between the two. For example, the flu and COVID-19 are both contagious respiratory diseases caused by viruses, and they share some of the same symptoms (e.g., fever, cough) and prevention tactics (e.g., handwashing, staying home when sick).But based on our current understanding, there are several reasons why COVID-19 is not “just like the flu”:

  1. SARS-CoV-2 is a novel virus. Unlike the influenza A and influenza B viruses responsible for annual seasonal flu epidemics, the virus that causes COVID-19 has never been encountered by the human body..
  2. There is no widespread immunity to COVID-19. As far as we can tell, anyone who has not had COVID-19 (with or without obvious disease) has the potential to become infected with COVID-19. It is a new disease and low percentages of people in communities have built immunity to it. Furthermore, our understanding is limited with regard to the timeline and the extent to which people could become re-infected with COVID-19 (if at all), but we’ll learn more as the pandemic progresses and data accumulate.
  3. There is no vaccine for COVID-19...
  4. There is a lack of consistently effective treatment for COVID-19. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several treatments for the flu that have been evaluated and are widely used...
  5. COVID-19 seems to be more contagious...
  6. COVID-19 has claimed more lives in the United States this year to date than seasonal influenza does in a typical year...

https://healthmetrics.heart.org/comparing-covid-19-with-the-flu-more-differences-than-similarities/

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Similarities and Differences between Flu and COVID-19

https://www.CDC.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm#table

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When COVID-19 meets flu season

Pulmonologist outlines factors that could determine severity of 2020/2021 flu season:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200529150651.htm

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Comparing COVID-19 to seasonal flu is wrong and dangerous https://www.MSN.com/en-us/health/medical/Dr-loh-comparing-covid-19-to-seasonal-flu-is-wrong-and-dangerous/ar-BB14Oa5n

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Here’s Why COVID-19 Is Much Worse Than the Flu:

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-covid-19-isn't-the-flu

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How COVID-19 compares to seasonal flu, and why you should take it seriously:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-covid19-flu-influenza/

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#CoronaVirusSA: Flu and Covid-19 — what’s the difference? https://health-e.org.za/2020/03/25/coronavirussa-flu-and-covid-19-whats-the-difference/

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Coronavirus Disease 2019 vs. the Flu: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu

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What Is the Difference Between Influenza and COVID-19?

https://www.britannica.com/story/what-is-the-difference-between-influenza-and-covid-19

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On 7/11/2020 at 1:05 PM, herring_RN said:

Comparing COVID-19 with the flu: More differences than similarities

Eduardo Sanchez, M.D., M.P.H., Chief, Center for Health Metrics and Evaluation

Many have compared seasonal influenza (the flu) with COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. This is understandable, to some degree, because to understand the new or unknown we sometimes compare it with something known or familiar and seek similarities between the two. For example, the flu and COVID-19 are both contagious respiratory diseases caused by viruses, and they share some of the same symptoms (e.g., fever, cough) and prevention tactics (e.g., handwashing, staying home when sick).But based on our current understanding, there are several reasons why COVID-19 is not “just like the flu”:

  1. SARS-CoV-2 is a novel virus. Unlike the influenza A and influenza B viruses responsible for annual seasonal flu epidemics, the virus that causes COVID-19 has never been encountered by the human body..
  2. There is no widespread immunity to COVID-19. As far as we can tell, anyone who has not had COVID-19 (with or without obvious disease) has the potential to become infected with COVID-19. It is a new disease and low percentages of people in communities have built immunity to it. Furthermore, our understanding is limited with regard to the timeline and the extent to which people could become re-infected with COVID-19 (if at all), but we’ll learn more as the pandemic progresses and data accumulate.
  3. There is no vaccine for COVID-19...
  4. There is a lack of consistently effective treatment for COVID-19. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several treatments for the flu that have been evaluated and are widely used...
  5. COVID-19 seems to be more contagious...
  6. COVID-19 has claimed more lives in the United States this year to date than seasonal influenza does in a typical year...

https://healthmetrics.heart.org/comparing-covid-19-with-the-flu-more-differences-than-similarities/

You are arguing against a belief system. Or at least a professed belief system. It would be like debating how old the earth is with a fundamentalist who believes it is 5000 years. Science is meaningless against beliefs.

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Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.

I just had a long telephone conversation with my cousin. She frightened her daughter and college student grandson by complaining about having to wear a mask at work and her favorite store. I answered her questions and she finally promised to wear a mask outside the house "So we don't worry." She listens to politicians and talk radio people who call COVID-19 a hoax.

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Specializes in oncology.
4 minutes ago, herring_RN said:

she finally promised to wear a mask outside the house "So we don't worry." She listens to politicians and talk radio people who call COVID-19 a hoax.

People have whole conspiracy theories about masks and how the government is using a cloth or surgical mask to control you. What is the reality of government in our lives? They literally assign you your own number shortly after birth. This number follows every governmental activity you do during your life including paying taxes, registering your property and your address. They know how much money you have saved in banks. Your number follows you into retirement and (until recently) medicare as your subscriber number. They know everything about you - probably know more about your spouse's past than you do, know more about you than you remember (for my age group my SS# was used in recording college grades) and may know more about your children than you'll ever hear. And you think they are controlling you by telling you to wear a mask.

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