What SARS-CoV-2 Does to the Body (2nd Edition, July 2023)

An Incomplete and Growing Resource

Generated in DALL-E

Last November, we posted a compilation of over a hundred studies and articles on how the SARS-CoV-2 virus can harm the body. It’s been a little over six months since then, and a lot more research has been published since then. So, it’s long overdue to revisit our understanding of why it’s just so important to prevent infections from a deadly & disabling virus that has ended and upended the lives of millions around the world - in Europe alone, the WHO is saying that over 36 million are suffering from Long COVID disability, an umbrella term for numerous medical complications.

Those who have insisted that SARS-CoV-2 is relatively harmless or “mild,” or insisted that COVID-19 is “just a cold/flu,” should be forced to contend with the ever-growing mountain of scientific research that has emerged, as new discoveries continued to be researched to this day.

CHILDREN & COVID

Courtesy of Greg Travis via Twitter (@greg_travis)

• COVID-19 is a leading cause of death in children and young people in the US (University of Oxford)

• Surge in child and teen diabetes (Jama Network)

• “Two US studies describe pediatric COVID...7.0% of hospitalized children developed neurologic complications such as seizures...even mild infections can lead to long COVID.” (University of Minnesota)

• More than 70% of US household COVID spread started with a child (CIDRAP)

• "Persistence of LV myocardial deformation abnormalities in previously healthy children with an asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic COVID-19 course after an average follow-up of 148 ± 68 days.” (MDPI Open Access Journals)

• “Inflammatory markers and pulmonary function in adolescents and young adults 6 months after mild COVID-19” (Frontiers in Immunology)

• “Fever, vomiting, and eye pain are a few of the symptoms afflicting a small number of children after they have been infected with COVID-19.” (NHK)

• COVID-19 May Trigger Autoimmune Responses in Children (HCPLive)

• “…increased rates of asthma, myocarditis and cardiomyopathy, cardiac dysrhythmias, diabetes, renal failure, venous thromboembolism, and coagulation disorders in children with laboratory‐confirmed COVID‐19 compared with children without COVID‐19.” (Medical Journal of Australia)

• “32.6% of the children had persistent symptoms at 2 months, 9.3% at 4 months, and 2.3% at 6 months” (Frontiers in Pediatrics)

• Children’s immune systems do not develop ‘adaptive’ memory to protect against second time SARS-CoV-2 infection (Garvan Institute of Medical Research)

• Based on 40 studies with 12,424 individuals, the pooled prevalence of any long COVID was 23.36 % (ScienceDirect)

• “Omicron strain causes 7 times more deaths among hospitalised children than influenza” (South China Morning Post)

• “In Ohio, between 30,000 and 70,000 children have long COVID.” (US News)

• COVID-19 Heart Lesions in Children: Clinical, Diagnostic and Immunological Changes (MDPI Open Access Journals)

• Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children: A dysregulated autoimmune disorder following COVID-19 (ScienceDirect)

• COVID-19 and Acute Neurologic Complications in Children (American Academy of Pediatrics)

• Ocular manifestations of COVID-19 in pediatric patients (SageJournals)

• Health Impairments in Children and Adolescents After Hospitalization for Acute COVID-19 or MIS-C (American Academy of Pediatrics)

• "Virtually all children infected with COVID-19 show signs of blood vessel damage" (Blood Advances)

• "Findings from our study support that prior COVID-19 infection was associated with a significantly increased risk for RSV infection and was a driving force for the 2022 surge of severe pediatric RSV cases in the US." (medRxiv)

• “12-16% children and youth infected with Omicron met the research definition of #LongCovid at 3 and 6 months after infection, with no evidence of difference between cases of first-positive and reinfection” (Journal of Pediatrics)

• Type 1 Diabetes Incidence and Risk in Children With a Diagnosis of COVID-19 (Jama Network)

• Long-COVID in children and adolescents: prevalence of long-COVID was 25.24%, most prevalent clinical: mood symptoms (16.50%) - (Nature)

• Abnormal Surge of Brain Abscesses in American Children, CDC Says (ScienceAlert)

• Increased red blood cell deformation in children and adolescents after SARS-CoV-2 infection (Nature)

• Children are at as much risk of Long COVID disability from reinfection as they are from primary infection (Journal of Pediatrics)

• “in children, independent from disease severity, SARS-CoV-2 can spread systemically and persist for weeks to months.” (Lancet)

COGNITIVE & NEUROLOGICAL IMPAIRMENT

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• Smell and taste dysfunction after covid-19 (BMJ)

• Neuropsychological deficits in patients with persistent COVID-19 symptoms (Nature)

• Neuroinflammation After COVID-19 With Persistent Depressive and Cognitive Symptoms (JAMA Psychiatry)

• SARS-CoV-2 promotes microglial synapse elimination in human brain organoids (Nature)

• Long-term consequences of COVID-19 on cognitive functioning up to 6 months after discharge: role of depression and impact on quality of life (Springer Link)

• SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure (Nature)

• 1 in 4 Showing Cognitive Deficits After Mild Case (NIH)

• Neurocognitive and psychiatric symptoms following infection with COVID-19: Evidence from laboratory and population studies (ScienceDirect)

• COVID-19 and cognitive impairment: neuroinvasive and blood‒brain barrier dysfunction (Journal of Neuroinflammation)

• Covid causes brain cells to abnormally fuse together, causing impairments in brain function & in 10% of study cases neuronal activity completely stopped (ScienceAdvances)

• COVID-19 may also lead to brain fog by affecting different brain regions through hyperactivation of the immune response, cell death, or inflammation (CIDRAP)

• Rapid Progression of Dementia Following COVID-19 (NIH)

HEART & CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH

• Heart attacks in people ages 25 to 44 increased by 30% compared to the expected number over the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic (Wiley Online Library)

• 1 in 3 Covid infections cause new onset high blood pressure, which can cause strokes and heart attacks (ScienceDirect)

• “even mild cases of Covid can lead to changes in your arteries which can cause an increased chance of heart attacks and stroke” (MDPI)

• Unlike flu, COVID-19 attacks DNA in the heart: new research (Immunology)

• Heart Attack Outcomes Far Worse for Those With COVID-19 (Cedars Sinai)

• COVID-Positive Donor Heart Tied to Lower Recipient Survival (Medscape)

• COVID-19 vaccination linked to fewer cardiac events (EurekAlert)

• Heart complications 2-8x higher with COVID infection than myocarditis in young males than with the vaccine (CDC)

• COVID-19 diagnosis raises risk of heart attack, stroke (Harvard Health)

• Multiple studies showed that COVID-19 increases the risk of heart inflammation more than vaccines do; study in Israel misleadingly used to claim otherwise (Health Feedback)

• Association of COVID-19 with short- and long-term risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality (Oxford Academic)

IMMUNE SYSTEM

• SARS-CoV-2 Infection Weakens Immune-Cell Response to Vaccination (NIH)

• COVID-19 patients share common, corticosteroid-independent features of impaired host immunity to pathogenic molds (medRxiv)

• Rise in hospitalizations for fungal infections during COVID-19 (CIDRAP)

• Immune System Runs Amok Months After COVID (UCSF)

• The Concept of Classical Herd Immunity May Not Apply to COVID-19 (Infectious Diseases Society of America, March 2022)

• Deep Phenotyping of Neurologic Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection (Neurology Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation)

LIVERS, KIDNEYS & DIABETES

• Up to one in 20 new diabetes cases could be linked to Covid (JAMA Net Open)

• Millions of COVID-19 patients may have undiagnosed acute kidney injury (PLOS Medicine)

• Out of 17531 hospitalized patients, more than ½ developed liver damage, 8% having damage that was severe. (medRxiv)

LONG COVID & DISABILITY

• "The total cost of long COVID is $3.7 trillion. 59% of the cost is lost quality of life; the remainder is reduced earnings and greater medical spending." (Harvard)

• Long COVID: Primate study reveals forms of ‘brain injury’ (Medical News Today)

• Long COVID: The impact on language and cognition (ScienceDirect)

• Altered brain connectivity in Long Covid during cognitive exertion (Frontiers in Neuroscience)

• Cognitive Deficits in Long Covid-19 (The New England Journal of Medicine)

• Individuals With Long COVID More Likely to Experience Heart Problems (American College of Cardiology)

• People with Long Covid experienced substantial decline in eGFR within one year from the infection date. (Oxford)

• “One in 20 K-12 educators believe they have long COVID” (Education Week)

• “46% of doctors with Long Covid who replied to this survey have developed it since vaccines were available” (British Medical Association)

• “Long COVID is leaving a legacy of chronic diseases…Health systems and governments need to be prepared for the long-lasting consequences for patients, health systems, life expectancy and economic productivity.” (Outlook Magazine)

• “Approximately 18 percent of workers with Long Covid—or about five percent of Covid-19 claimants—could not return to work for more than one year.” (NYSIF)

• Brazilian HCW Study: “Of 7,051 HCP diagnosed with COVID-19, 1,933 (27.4%) who developed long COVID” (Cambridge)

OVERALL MORTALITY

• ‘A death sentence’: More than 600 people die after catching COVID in hospital (The Age, Australia)

• “A rampage through the body: The lungs are ground zero, but COVID-19 also tears through organ systems from brain to blood vessels” (Science)

• COVID can stay in body 'for months', autopsies reveal (Nature)

• Reinfections led to hospitalisation and death more among young adults than people over 65 during Omicron era (CDC)

• Over 1,300 Educators Died From COVID (EducationWeek)

• “Omicron has comparable intrinsic severity to the ancestral Wuhan strain” (Oxford)

PREGNANCY

• Maternal SARS-CoV-2, Placental Changes and Brain Injury in 2 Neonates (American Academy of Pediatrics)

• COVID in Pregnancy May Affect Boys' Neurodevelopment (Medscape)

REINFECTIONS WITH SARS-CoV-2

• Cases and severe outcomes associated with SARS-CoV-2 reinfection have increased across the United States since September 2021. (CDC)

• Repeat COVID is riskier than first infection (Nature)

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

• SARS-CoV-2 Damages The Testes & Testicular Tissues, Crosses The Blood-Testes Barrier! (Frontiers in Reproductive Health)

• Covid reduces quality of men's semen for months after even mild infection (WalesOnline)

• Sperm counts decline even after mild COVID infections (CIDRAP)

SKIN

• Study of 234 people with COVID-19 skin symptoms. Most lasted a median of two weeks, but were persistent in a subset of patients. Pernio (a painful, inflammatory skin condition) lasted more than 60 days in 7 people, and over 133 days in one person. (Lancet, January 2021)