Again, to summarize, COVID-19 may cause any of the following complications (note, some are much rarer than others, thankfully):
- Bilateral viral pneumonia.
- Lung fibrosis and permanent loss of lung function.
- Myocarditis and pericarditis and the breakdown of the heart muscle into the bloodstream, accompanied by elevated troponin levels.
- Excessive clotting leading to myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, or stroke. Platelets are used up by what appears to be Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation.
- Mild viral hepatitis, indicated by abnormal AST/ALT and highly elevated ferritin.
- Myoglobinemia and possible renal tubular damage that leads to acute kidney injury.
- Cytokine release syndrome.
- Bacterial co-infections and viral sepsis leading to multiple organ failure and excess clotting.
- GI tract infections and abnormalities.
- Hypokalemia, low lymphocytes, low platelets, and low white blood cell counts.
- Male infertility and damage to the seminiferous ducts, indicated by abnormal testosterone and luteinizing hormone levels.
- Medullary damage that causes dysautonomia, loss of automatic breathing, and perhaps even collapses and seizures with abnormal posturing (decerebrate/decorticate posturing) and the fencing response. Behavioral abnormalities like strange aggression have also been noted.
- Possible pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary vasculitis, or hemolytic anemia.
- It can also attack T cells and directly infect and suppress the immune system, and it may cause antibody-dependent enhancement like Dengue.
The pathology of this thing is very complex. That's just about as condensed of a summary as can be written on the thing, and even then, new papers keep being published that describe new, previously-undiscovered properties of this virus.
The thing about COVID-19 is that it frequently causes symptoms that doctors describe as being like "altitude sickness".
Patients show up, they seem normal, they put a stethoscope on them and check their lungs, and their lungs sound normal, but they're not normal. They put a pulse oximeter on them, and their O2 saturation is very, very low. Some think that this virus stealthily attacks the blood and blood vessels before everything else, causing anomalous constriction of the blood vessels or even hemolytic anemia. Oddly, patients show seemingly normal levels of hematocrit, but also, highly elevated ferritin. Others speculate that the virus causes micro-clotting of the capillaries.
Patients have
extremely high D-dimer levels indicative of the presence of clots in their blood vessels. Like, lots and lots of clots. This thing coagulates the blood a lot.
