The biology of coronavirus COVID-19 - including research and treatments

Post‐mortem examination of COVID19 patients reveals diffuse alveolar damage with severe capillary congestion and variegated findings of lungs and other organs suggesting vascular dysfunction
First published: 04 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1111/his.14134

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/his.14134

eta:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzKvIYwqQkE

What Doctors Are Learning From Autopsy Findings of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Patients
236,106 views
•6 May 2020

 

The slightly elevated cytokines (IL-6) etc are typical of acute infections with some inflammation and don't suggest a "cytokine storm" syndrome, where cytokine levels are extremely high (hyperinflammation). See this commentary also: https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/86021

The vascular dysfunction and clotting problems isn't merely due to damage to the blood vessels, it can also be due to dysregulation of the angiotensin-renin system, of which ACE2 plays a key role. The problem isn't merely the formation of clots (due to damage of the respiratory epithelium), but problems with the clearance of those clots. There are other respiratory infections that lead to similar lung damage that don't result in the same clotting problems seen - so the problem isn't merely due to the damage done.

 

New call for research on the risk factors, transmission and prevalence of coronavirus

https://www.ukri.org/news/new-call-for-research-on-the-risk-factors-of-coronavirus/

 

More evidence that SARS-CoV-19 human pandemic started earlier than thought. Mutation clock suggests 95% confidence window starts on September 13th 2019 and ends December 7 and there is no evidence it started in Wuhan or even in China according to Dr Peter Forster of the University of Cambridge ... and I believe him as I think I caught it on Nov 27th at the dentist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQQf2yoymu0

See also article.
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articl...ted-early-september-casting-doubts-origin.htm

 

Autopsy Findings and Venous Thromboembolism in Patients With COVID-19: A Prospective Cohort Study

(small study with 12 patients)

"The high incidence of thromboembolic events suggests an important role of COVID-19–induced coagulopathy.

Further studies are needed to investigate the molecular mechanism and overall clinical incidence of COVID-19–related death, as well as possible therapeutic interventions to reduce it."

The researchers suggest to consider blood thinners as part of the Covid therapy

 

In a press conference one of the authors said that a quarantine of infected persons would be detrimental for them, because moving around and sports would be important to prevent this.

 

I think you can still do anti thrombosis exercise at home though. Because not quarantining isn't an option, either.

 

The idea that someone sick enough with Covid19 to get thromboembolism should be going jogging is just silly. And preventing clot formation does not require 'sport'.

 

Do patients have to be severly ill with Covid to get thromboembolism?

The study includes 2 patients that didn't die at a hospital. I don't know if that means they weren't ill enough or just didn't make it there in time.

Interestingly, the leading pathologist, Prof. Klaus Püschel, doesn't believe SarsCov2 is that serious. He doubts that there even will be notable excess mortality.

Maybe he just has a different view on things as a coroner/pathologist but his findings are being used by lockdown-critics.

 

I would imagine they would at least feel off colour enough not to want to go for a cross country run!
Püschel sounds as if he is one of these people who would say the sinking of the Titanic was not too bad because at least some people got into the lifeboats. I wonder what the motivation for this is - not wanting to be proved wrong having misjudged at first, or some sort of disdain for fellow human beings.

 

Püschel had previously disregarded our CDC's recommendation to not conduct autopsies and found - no surprise - most deceased were of old age with pre existing conditions.

I never understood what the "value" of that previous finding was, this was known from China since January. But it was used by lockdown-critics to make their point.

I have no scientific background whatsoever, but as a layman I feel like there is something strange going on with researchers everywhere going public on their own enmeshing their data with politics. Or that was always the case and I didn't know.

(Edited/partly deleted for correction since I was refering to a reposted, not original source)

 

Doctors seem to be finding new problems the virus creates on a daily basis: good summary from Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/10/coronavirus-attacks-body-symptoms/?arc404=true

 

That description of symptoms could have written by patients on ME/CFS social media channels.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/world/europe/coronavirus-italy-recovery.html

It's a bit sad that people don't always realize that the persistent symptoms part could very well be the same illness as ME/CFS is in many cases.

 

Here in NZ, there have been three recent positive test results in nurses who have got to the end of self-isolation (14 days) due to possible exposure, and then been tested as a routine precaution before returning to work. So the incubation period seems to be sometimes longer than 14 days...

 

Being a perfectionist, having anxiety, depression, 4 or more adverse childhood experiences .........

 

.. or they were asymptomatic, or had only very mild symptoms?

 

Could be that the virus is still detected but perhaps not transmissible. There were also some reports that the virus stayed on various surfaces for several weeks, but now they say it doesn't seem likely to be transmissible from surfaces for very long.

I find it quite frustrating to read all these conflicting news articles about things you'd think should have been figured out by now (in some sense it's all too familiar when you are used to reading articles about ME/CFS). Obviously it's a new virus, but the way things are reported gives the impression that people have never studied how respiratory viruses behave before and now a couple of months in there still seems to be no consensus on anything. I think it's sadly no wonder people resort to conspiracy theories when the information is this conflicting and poor.

 

I don't think that is the right tool for the job, because the problem is not excess of platelets but vascular dysregulation. Other physicians have reported thromboembolic events despite patients being on blood thinners...

 

And being a member of post covid group full of vexatious patients.