Member-only story
Death is Not the Only Way COVID-19 Can Hurt You.
Many young and healthy Americans assume they are safe because they won’t die from the COVID-19. Death is not the only way it can hurt you.
It is true that only a small percent of people who become infected with COVID-19 die from the virus, but that does not tell the whole story. Many of the survivors are finding life after the virus is not the same. Weeks and even months after testing positive, Americans find that their lives have not returned to normal, and there is no guarantee that they ever will.
The minority of people who die from the virus capture most media attention, but physicians are discovering long-term problems in survivors. The most common complaints are fatigue, shortness of breath, cough, joint pain, and chest pain. These symptoms vary from annoying to limiting enough that suffers are finding it difficult to return to work. However, more serious adverse effects are possible even in young, healthy individuals. And these more severe problems appear to be more common than initially thought. Let’s take a look at the serious risk that can affect people infected with the virus.
- Cardiovascular: inflammation of the heart muscle has been a serious problem in the ICU, where patients infected with COVID-19 are…