What Does Coronavirus Do to the Body? - The New York Times - 0 views
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the virus appears to start in peripheral areas on both sides of the lung and can take a while to reach the upper respiratory tract, the trachea and other central airways.
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that pattern helps explain why in Wuhan, where the outbreak began, many of the earliest cases were not identified immediately.
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The initial testing regimen in many Chinese hospitals did not always detect infection in the peripheral lungs, so some people with symptoms were sent home without treatment.
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while the virus appears to zero in on the lungs, it may also be able to infect cells in the gastrointestinal system, experts say. This may be why some patients have symptoms like diarrhea or indigestion
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“The virus will actually land on organs like the heart, the kidney, the liver, and may cause some direct damage to those organs,
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some patients in China recovered but got sick again, apparently because they had damaged and vulnerable lung tissue that was subsequently attacked by bacteria in their body.
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As the body’s immune system shifts into high gear to battle the infection, the resulting inflammation may cause those organs to malfunction, he said.
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About 80 percent of people infected with the new coronavirus have relatively mild symptoms. But about 20 percent of people become more seriously ill and in about 2 percent of patients in China, which has had the most cases, the disease has been fatal.
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the effects appear to depend on how robust or weakened a person’s immune system is. Older people or those with underlying health issues, like diabetes or another chronic illness, are more likely to develop severe symptoms
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Some patients can remain stable for over a week and then suddenly develop pneumonia, Dr. Diaz said. Some patients seem to recover but then develop symptoms again.
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Coronavirus particles have spiked proteins sticking out from their surfaces, and these spikes hook onto cell membranes, allowing the virus’s genetic material to enter the human cell.
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That genetic material proceeds to “hijack the metabolism of the cell and say, in effect, ‘Don’t do your usual job. Your job now is to help me multiply and make the virus,’
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As copies of the virus multiply, they burst out and infect neighboring cells. The symptoms often start in the back of the throat with a sore throat and a dry cough.
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That can damage the alveoli or lung sacs and they have to work harder to carry out their function of supplying oxygen to the blood
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The swelling and the impaired flow of oxygen can cause those areas in the lungs to fill with fluid, pus and dead cells. Pneumonia, an infection in the lung, can occur