More Than The Lungs: SARS-CoV-2

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Health
Medicine
Edward Hessler

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 is well-known for invading our air passageways and also that exchanger of oxygen and carbon dioxide, the lungs.

But it attacks like no other infection and these have surprised scientists and clinicians.

Sharon Begley writing for STAT describes the assault from head-to-toe: gut, kidney, sense of smell, lungs, pancreas, heart, gallbladder. She writes,

"'Infecting cells is only the first way SARS-CoV-2 wreaks havoc. Patients with severe Covid-19 also suffer a runaway inflammatory response and, often, clot formation,' said infectious disease physician Rochelle Walensky of Massachusetts General Hospital. 'That can cause symptoms as different as a lack of blood flow to the intestines and the red, inflamed “Covid toe.”'

It is known that the "'earliest signature of COVID-19',"is  the loss of a sense of smell, "appearing days before a positive swab test."

You can watch this in a short video (2m 02s) embedded in Begley's reporting for STAT and then check details in which you are particularly interested.

Wear your mask, distance socially and physically in order to care for yourself and others. We are in this together. By the way, it is both, NOT or:  Mask AND social/physical distancing.