
How does coronavirus kill? Clinicians trace a ferocious rampage through the body - doener
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/how-does-coronavirus-kill-clinicians-trace-ferocious-rampage-through-body-brain-toes#
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bobowzki
I'm home with Covid-19 right now. I'm an intensivist and probably got infected
at work. That's also why I had access to PCR testing to confirm the diagnosis
after only two days of symptoms.

I'm 36, in good shape, was lucky, and one week in I'm feeling stronger every
day.

It wasquite unlike any other "flu" I've had.

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boomer_joe
I am also a healthy man in my mid thirties, and like you, got infected and
quickly recovered. That a was a month ago.

It would be good to know if the organ damage detailed in the article also
affects those that recover without significant symptoms.

I fear it does, because I have lost and not regained my sense of smell.

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bobowzki
I'm not too worried about that (yet). I think you have a good chance to get it
back but it will probably take a while.

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ordu
I read somewhere, that COVID-19 attacks alveoli first, in contrast with other
viruses who start with attacking bronchi. It leads to problems with bloog
oxygenation, but human body doesn't control for oxygen levels, monitoring
instead levels of CO2. So it leads to hypoxia which goes undetected for a some
time. Damage to alveoli also goes undetected, because alveoli lack pain
receptors.

I'm not a medic, I don't know is it plausible explanation or not (I'm even not
sure whether I succeeded to use correctly all the anatomical words like
"bronhi" or "alveoli") but I'd like someone knowledgeable to comment on this.
I wander if it was true, could hypoxia explain other symptoms, like heart
damage.

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balola
This theory doesn't seem plausible, the very place where the body releases CO2
is the same for O2.

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taneq
The comment about "not controlling for O2" is referring to the fact that the
human body can't directly detect blood oxygen levels, and only infers them
from blood CO2 levels. So if something's going wrong with the oxygen
absorption process but the CO2 exhalation process is still fine, that would
explain why patients have dangerously low blood oxygen but aren't panting or
otherwise showing respiratory distress.

(Incidentally this is also why it's really dangerous to hyperventilate before
free diving, because you can put your O2 / CO2 ratio out of whack which can
cause you to black out without warning while under water.)

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EForEndeavour
> the human body can't directly detect blood oxygen levels, and only infers
> them from blood CO2 levels

This is not quite accurate. The body monitors blood chemistry centrally (in
the brain and spinal cord) and peripherally (in the blood vessels).

Central chemoreceptors only monitor pH of the cerebrospinal fluid, which
indirectly tracks blood CO2, but don't monitor O2.

Peripheral chemoreceptors monitor O2, CO2, and pH.

[https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-
ap/chapter/respi...](https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-
ap/chapter/respiration-control/)

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3solarmasses
Anything that overruns the body will kill in diverse ways.

Cancer does the same thing. This isn't something new and terrifying...

A supercomputer probably couldn't model the exact way a terminal cancer
patient will die.

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rpiguy
Partially agree with this. It is not uncommon for a virus to sneak into the
brain or other organs, but SARS COV2 is a little different in that it
specifically attacks receptors found in all those areas. It isn't just a bi-
product of the virus overwhelming your immune system and being so prevalent it
gets into everything.

I do wish these articles would talk more about what the virus is doing (less
scary) than what it can do (article can be written to be as terrifying as the
author wants). If .0000001 of cases have their hearts attacked it isn't as
fear mongery as saying "look it can attack your heart!"

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SpicyLemonZest
There's just not much of an article to write about what the virus generally
does. They lay out the typical course over two paragraphs near the beginning
of the article: it infects the lungs, and gives patients a progressively
harder time breathing, until either their immune system fights it back or
their breathing is too impaired.

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dr_dshiv
"the virus acts like no pathogen humanity has ever seen"

Really? Is that not hyperbole?

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Agenttin
The devs really need to nerf it in the next patch.

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pvaldes
So we have: Direct massive attacks to 1) Lungs (plus capillaries) with or
without sensation of asphyxia and 2) Kidneys (renal failure) as the two main
battlefields.

Also to 3) brain/olfactive centers in nose and 4) could reproduce also in gut
(maybe with a low risk of transmission by faeces).

And we can be caught also in the friendly fire of citokinine storm, but liver
damage is probably unrelated with coronavirus

Very interesting article.

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Joof
Could be blood clots going literally everywhere in the body.

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gentleman11
I know somebody with a serious blood clotting disorder. I can’t find research
about whether they are higher risk or not. Does anybody know of a study that
looked at this?

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gentleman11
I think there is a previous discussion from a couple of weeks ago

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dmitrygr
Truly terrifying

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known
With an average diameter of 0.1 micrometers it is extremely stable for 2 weeks
at 4°C and survives for 5 minutes at 70°C and active while airborne for up to
3 hours

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richij
Yes, it's entire possible that the "cytokine storm" hypothesis turns out to be
wrong. Here's my _inexpert_ summary of what some researchers believe: A
buildup of superoxide radicals leads to a buildup of other "reactive oxygen
species," all of which cause acute oxidative stress—notably in the endothelia.

So COVID-19 attacks the endothelial structures throughout the body. Notably
the interface between lungs and blood vessels, but also the heart, other vital
organs, capillaries, etc. Hence clotting and "sticky blood" is a huge problem.

Unsurprisingly, bad diet messes up one of the pathways the body uses to cleans
up superoxide radicals—chronic high sugar and lack of trace elements (zinc,
copper, magnesium). And now it seems C19 messes up another pathway, thanks to
it interfering with ACE2 receptors. This could be why we're seeing high
mortality in people with diabetes, pre-diabetes, and all the other conditions
related to poor blood-sugar regulation—obesity, coronary artery disease,
dementia, etc.

A good summary at:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj2vB_VITXQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj2vB_VITXQ)

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rpiguy
Vitamin D appears to be playing a large role as well. I wondered why France
wasn't hit harder and all I could come up with was wine (antioxidant) and
cheese (vitamin D from dairy). India is another country that follows this
pattern tumeric (antioxidant) and dairy.

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g8oz
Are they still not including deaths in retirement homes as part of the
fatality count or did they backtrack on that?

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venj
They are Included in the daily reports since beginning of April IIRC. The
total number of fatalities also includes losses in retirement houses for
March.

