Covid Can Cause Ongoing Damage to Heart, Lungs and Kidneys, Study Finds: Long Covid

[appalachiablue]

- The Guardian, May 23, 2022. Ed.

- One in 8 Covid hospital patients have heart inflammation up to 2 months later, researchers find -

Damage to the body’s organs including the lungs and kidneys is common in people who were admitted to hospital with Covid, with one in 8 found to have heart inflammation, researchers have revealed. As the pandemic evolved, it became clear that some people who had Covid were being left with ongoing symptoms – a condition that has been called long Covid. Previous studies have revealed that fewer than a third of patients who have ongoing Covid symptoms after being hospitalised with the disease feel fully recovered a year later, while some experts have warned long Covid could result in a generation affected by disability.

Now researchers tracking the progress of patients who were treated in hospital for Covid say they have found evidence the disease can take a toll on a range of organs. What’s more, they say the severity of ongoing symptoms appears to be linked to the severity of the Covid infection itself. “Even fit, healthy individuals can suffer severe Covid-19 illness and to avoid this, members of the public should take up the offer of vaccination,” said Prof Colin Berry, of the Univ. of Glasgow, which led the CISCO-19 (Cardiac imaging in Sars coronavirus disease-19) study.

“Our study provides objective evidence of abnormalities at one to two months post-Covid and these findings tie in with persisting symptoms at that time and the likelihood of ongoing health needs one year later,” Berry added. Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers describe how they tracked the outcomes of 159 people hospitalised with Covid between May 2020 and March 2021. The team carried out a range of scans & blood tests at 28-60 days after the Covid patients were discharged, with patients also given questionnaires to complete. The results were compared with those from a control group of 29 people with a similar age, sex, ethnicity, & cardiovascular risk factors, who had not had Covid.

The authors write that, compared with controls, those who had been hospitalised with Covid showed several abnormalities, including in results from imaging of the heart, lungs & kidneys. The team found about 13%, or one in 8, of those hospitalised were deemed by experts to be very likely to have myocarditis, or heart inflammation, compared with just one control participant. This led to a “lower health-related quality of life, greater illness perception, higher levels of anxiety & depression [and] lower levels of physical activity,” said Dr Andrew Morrow, also from the Univ. of Glasgow. The likelihood of myocarditis was higher among healthcare workers & those with acute kidney injury, as well as those with more severe disease requiring invasive ventilation...

More, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/23/covid-can-cause-ongoing-damage-to-heart-lungs-and-kidneys-study-finds

[progree]

1. Supposedly if we're vaxxed, we're immune from severe illness, so we can party -- well, maybe not

Last edited Wed May 25, 2022, 01:14 PM - Edit history (1)

I don't know if this is just a Minnesota thing -- but

COVID-19 in MN: Caseload rise may be leveling off; ICU needs low, stable, by Craig Helmstetter, 5/6/22
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/05/06/covid19-in-mn-rising-caseloads-may-be-leveling-hospital-needs-stable

The final graph in this week’s update demonstrates both the waning effectiveness of the original vaccination and virulence of the recent omicron strains. Most recently, Minnesotans who are vaccinated are just as likely as those who are unvaccinated to get COVID-19.

On the other hand, unvaccinated Minnesotans remain at least twice as likely to either get hospitalized or die from COVID-19 than is the case among those who are vaccinated. ((but these ratios are shrinking fast -Progree))

Unvaxxed relative to the vaxxed (my read of the graphs, approximate):
Cases: 1X,     Hospitalization: 2X     Deaths: 2.5X



The local Covid bubbly optimistic brigade has long been telling us that if we're vaxxed, (or vaxxed and boosted), we're virtually immune from severe disease, with only a slight risk equivalent to being in a car or going outside to get the newspaper or whatever.

Well, the severe disease risk is narrowing between unvaxxed and vaxxed. I for one don't feel "immune" when my risk of hospitalization is "only" 1/2 that of an unvaxxed person, and my risk of death is "only" 40% of that of an unvaxxed person. But maybe its just my neurotic persona and my tendency to worry my pretty little head off about things I know nothing about.

Somebody responded to one of these postings by saying the statistics are skewed because a lot of the unvaxxed have natural immunity due to prior infection .... OK ... well, a large percentage of the vaxxed also have been infected too ... so anyway, what's the "real" ratio? I'm not looking for linkless assertions that the "real" ratios are still "huge", or links to old numbers.

My purpose is not to argue that being vaxxed is not all that much better than being unvaxxed, but rather to assess my own personal risk (how "immune" am I to severe disease), and I'm not sure the arm-waving about natural-immunity unvaxxed is relevant to that. Whatever, the trend in the graph is deteriorating fast in the face of new variants and fading booster effectiveness with time. Even one month ago stats are way out of date.

(I'm weakly vaxxed with single-dose J&J plus double-boosted BTW, age 65-75)

In another thread, someone asserted that Covid deaths in New York state in the current wave are "very low". Well, it's about 8 times as many deaths recently (about 24/day) as traffic deaths (about 3/day) in the state. (Traffic deaths include pedestrians, bicycles, and motorbikes as well as cars and trucks). I guess everyone has their own idea of what "very low" is.

Rant off.

[appalachiablue]

2. You bring up some impt. and troubling issues, thanks. This

that you wrote is the crux of concern for me as well and others following the pandemic news closely:

- "the trend in the graph is deteriorating fast in the face of new variants and fading booster effectiveness with time. Even one month ago stats are way out of date." -

If it proves helpful to get a booster every month or so until and if a 'super vaccine' is produced, I'll sign up.

But will more boosters be offered given issues of effectiveness, esp. for new variants, also cost and availability.

The walking incubators of new variants in people who refuse to vax and use precaution is appalling.

In the meantime, keep up protections, follow guidelines and try to stay well is what I know.