The more we keep discovering about this virus, the more it becomes very clear to me that everyone should want to completely avoid getting it! I see a changing wind in the press where there are more and more stories about how most folks that are infected are either asymptomatic or only get a very mild case of COVID-19. It seems there is a second wave of attempts at painting the disease as only really a problem for the old or very sick.
Unfortunately, what the media keeps ignoring to do in their reporting is to educate the public in how we currently still know so very little about this virus and the diseases and ailments it may cause. While this disease was originally only thought to be causing pulmonary/respiratory issues, every week now there seems to be a new concern about other health problems. The latest reported issues are strokes being seen in young adults with COVID-19. From Washington Post’s article Young and middle-aged people, barely sick with COVID-19, are dying of strokes:
Reports of strokes in the young and middle-aged — not just at Mount Sinai, but also in many other hospitals in communities hit hard by the novel coronavirus — are the latest twist in our evolving understanding of the disease it causes. The numbers of those affected are small but nonetheless remarkable because they challenge how doctors understand the virus. Even as it has infected nearly 2.8 million people worldwide and killed about 195,000 as of Friday, its biological mechanisms continue to elude top scientific minds. Once thought to be a pathogen that primarily attacks the lungs, it has turned out to be a much more formidable foe — impacting nearly every major organ system in the body.
…
Mocco, who has spent his career studying strokes and how to treat them, said he was “completely shocked” by the analysis. He noted the link between covid-19 and stroke “is one of the clearest and most profound correlations I’ve come across.”
“This is much too powerful of a signal to be chance or happenstance,” he said.
The following are other very serious health issues that have been seen associated with this virus in some patients:
It seems we are even still learning that it isn’t behaving like a normal respiratory virus in the lungs and has some doctors questioning recommended ventilator courses of treatment.
I really, really hope this virus isn’t as bad as it appears and that it is clearing the body and not hiding in it like the varicella zoster virus (better known as chicken pox) which can then re-emerge as herpes zoster (shingles).
There is so much we don’t know. Younger folks seem unworried about catching it as it supposedly doesn’t harm them. Just because it doesn’t immediately harm them doesn’t mean that infection with this virus won’t have serious consequences in years to come. We can see with the HIV virus that it can take several years before the virus’s damage is realized. I’m not saying that this SARS-CoV-2 virus will behave this way, what I am saying is DON’T BE COMPLACENT about this virus because WE STILL DON’T KNOW A LOT.
I am very concerned that momentum will gather towards a Swedish approach to letting the young and healthy get infected and only trying to protect the older and sicker citizens. I find this to be a very dangerous approach since we currently still have no clue about whether this virus completely clears our bodies after recovery. We still don’t know if there is a possibility, like the chicken pox virus, of it making an encore appearance after a certain amount of time or if there is any long term damage done by the virus that we don’t yet understand.
Folks need to stay scared about contracting this virus until we definitely know more. We must not let the plutocrats use the media and their political influence to convince everyone that we must rush back to work and not be worried about getting infected because it isn’t as dangerous as it has been portrayed. These same plutocrats will stay sheltered and away from others until more is known but at the same time will encourage others to take the risk.
I hope and pray that this COVID-19 disease does clear the system and that there aren’t going to be any long term health consequences for the vast majority of those infected. This is likely going to be the case if it behaves like most of the other similar viruses. The thing right now though is that we just don’t know much yet. Every day we learn more. Hopefully soon we will have a better idea of why these other ailments are being seen and just how dangerous this disease is going to be for most folks who get infected. Until then, I will continue to do my best to avoid being infected.