Chinese doctors: autopsies of coronavirus victims suggest COVID19 is like combination of SARS & AIDS

[fleur-de-lisa]

Dr. Dena Grayson ✔@DrDenaGrayson

Chinese doctors say autopsies of coronavirus victims suggest that COVID19 is “like a combination of SARS and AIDS as it damages both the lungs and immune systems,” and can cause “irreversible” lung damage even if the patient survives

Link to tweet

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/chinese-doctors-say-coronavirus-like-a-combination-of-sars-and-aids-can-cause-irreversible-lung-damage/news-story/f58f19c5eeae99b845c54e2d2b9305ca

The grim finding was reported on by Communist Party mouthpiece the Global Times on Friday, after a paper by Wuhan doctors published in the Journal of Forensic Medicine earlier in the week went viral on Chinese social media.

“The influence of COVID-19 on the human body is like a combination of SARS and AIDS as it damages both the lungs and immune systems,” Peng Zhiyong, director of the intensive care unit of the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan, told the Global Times.

Dr Peng was commenting on the paper by Liu Liang, a forensic specialist from the Tongji Medical College at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, whose team had conducted nine autopsies of coronavirus patients as of February 24.

“The autopsy results Liu shared inspired me a lot. Based on the results, I think the most important thing now is to take measures at an early stage of the disease to protect patients’ lungs from irreversible fibrosis,” Dr Peng told the outlet.

Pulmonary fibrosis is permanent scarring of the lung tissue that can leave the patient chronically out of breath. The paper described an autopsy conducted on an 85-year-old man. It said there was apparent damage to the patient’s lungs.

Excess production of mucus spilt out of the alveoli — tiny air sacs in the lungs that absorb oxygen — indicating COVID-19 “causes an inflammation response that damages deep airways and pulmonary alveoli”.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. Yikes

So, not just like "the flu"

[uponit7771]

4. +1, 750 million Chinese were quarantined for weeks I don't see how this is like the flu either

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. Although

there are reportedly two different strains possibly going around too, so one may do more damage than the other but still...........

[wnylib]

11. According to UK health experts

at the Guardian, the 2 strains idea of one being worse than the other is not accurate.

The original strain is called the S strain. All viuses have some mutations, and the mutation of covid 19 most common now is the L strain.

But....they go on to say that L strain replicates faster within the body and spreads more easily. So it sounds to me like it is worse than S strain.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

17. Thanks

I'm trying to be really careful because everything we're hearing about COVID-19 is extremely fluid and what we know (or don't know) is changing rapidly

[wnylib]

18. I am being very careful because

I am in a risk group. 70 years old. Asthma. Chronic chest congestion from allergies, which provides a breeding ground for microbes. Very susceptible to viruses. So I follow the most accurate news I can find.

When it reaches my community, which seems inevitable eventually, I plan to hibernate as much as possible.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

19. I hope you stay safe and well

[wnylib]

20. Thanks. And you as well.

[dewsgirl]

8. This has been floating around for weeks, kind of scary to be confirmed.

[uponit7771]

2. Sooooooooo, airborne AIDs ?! ... jus, damn

[wnylib]

13. NO, not airborne AIDS

It says that the influence on the body is like AIDS in that it leaves permanent damage to the lungs. Not the same thing as AIDS, which attacks the immune system itself.

If it was actually an airborne version of AIDS, they would be using an AIDS cocktail of drugs to treat it. But there is no treatment other than helping the patients breathe while their immune systems fight off the infection.

[FakeNoose]

37. No, they're saying the damage to the immune system and lungs is similar to AIDS

It's unfortunate because people are reacting to the misleading headline, and we're not all taking the time to read the info given in the article.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Holy crap!

[GusBob]

6. ? Lot of smokers and smog in china?

Could be a factor?

[GopherGal]

31. take it with a grain of salt, but...

I read somewhere that in the Wuhan/Hubei area, about 50% of men smoke. (For comparison's sake, smoking rate in the US is now around 15%, down from about 40-45% in the 1950s)

A sex differential in smoking rates was alluded to as a possible cause for why the death rate seemed to be higher in older men than in older women.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

39. Yes. Those things are a factor.

From what I see on line some 68% of Chinese men are smokers. That also means that a majority of women will be living with a smoker.

Air pollution is an enormous problem there. These things matter.

I am currently reading Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution by Beth Gardiner. Essentially it says that even a very small amount of pollution has measurable long term effects.

[dewsgirl]

7. I saw this on Reddit, horrifying...I'm sure this will be attacked

Last edited Fri Mar 6, 2020, 09:16 AM - Edit history (1)

as fake news shortly, no way do they want the public aware of it.

[unitedwethrive]

9. As a physician, this is the most potentially worrying information I've seen.

It clearly needs to be confirmed on a much larger scale, but if the virus causes chronic lung damage, it would be far more similar to the polio pandemic than any other we've seen in recent history. Obviously the sequelae is different, but a virus with a significant mortality rate that also has long-term morbidity is a huge threat to the population.

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. Polio was the first thing I thought of, regarding long term concerns. This is a

terrible administration to be handling such a crisis!

[dewsgirl]

36. That is a huge understatement, there aren't words to describe

how horrible it is that the Trump administration is in charge of this. I would be thrilled to have the Bush administration right about now.

[Skittles]

34. I had to google "sequelae"

"a condition which is the consequence of a previous disease or injury"

[bdamomma]

10. they should post this

on a billboard, or let Bloomberg put ad on TV.

[Chainfire]

12. Well that's just groovy

But if you call now, you can get two, two for the price of one. I guess if it mutates you will ingest one virus and explode. (what is the singular for virus?)

[wnylib]

15. Virus is the singular. The plural is viruses.

[Alhena]

21. NY Times says that story is false - link

That scare story has been posted about a million times online over the last week. The New York Time says this story is untrue:

CLAIM: The new coronavirus can cause 50 percent fibrosis of the lungs.THE FACTS: False. Experts say there is no evidence that the new virus causes fibrosis. Dr. Robert Legare Atmar, an infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine, said patients have not been shown to have fibrosis, which occurs when lung tissue begins scarring. The virus has been known in more serious cases to cause pneumonia, severe respiratory syndrome or kidney failure, but not fibrosis. People who are suffering from coronavirus may see symptoms in as little two to 14 days, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-diseases expert at Vanderbilt University, said he has not seen studies indicating that after patients recover from the new coronavirus, they suffer serious lung damage. “The vast majority of people get better,” he said.

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/02/28/us/ap-not-real-news.html

[Disaffected]

23. Thank you!

Good grief, there is enough authentic bad news posted on DU as it is - I wish folks would not exacerbate it with false crapola.

[oldtime dfl_er]

26. This article is a week old

Things move fast, and it's hard to know what's accurate at any given moment

[Alhena]

28. The article OP posted is a repeat of one posted like 9 days ago

It's gotten picked up by tons of clickbait sites over the last week.

[Mersky]

27. 👀 So, the OP tweet/article is FALSE n/t

[OneBlueDotBama]

29. news.com au....

Rupert Murdock's Australian operation, or fox news, or the NY Post...

[dalton99a]

35. +1

[abqtommy]

22. Could the lung damage be similar to "popcorn lung" caused by vaping? Not good no matter

what.

[global1]

24. Could Those People That Died From Vaping....

be mis-diagnosed? Maybe they had the coronavirus and it wasn't considered at the time.

[abqtommy]

25. I wonder...I hate it when we get more questions than answers!

[Ex Lurker]

32. If it were circulating that long ago

We would be seeing tens of thousands of cases by now.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

40. No. I believe there was a commonality of

some particular ingredient in what those people were vaping.

And as Ex Lurker says, if they died from this Corona Virus there would be many thousands of cases in this country by now.

[safeinOhio]

30. Read a few days ago that CT scans

are cheaper and better at detecting this virus. The same as used for pneumonia.

[FakeNoose]

38. That's good to know

People have been posting that they can't get a Coronavirus test done, and they're being turned away by hospitals and clinics.