Children are now believed to be highly vulnerable to coronavirus. The disease may attack not only lungs, but also kidneys, hearts, and nerves.
On Sunday, May 10, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed a distressing data, as The New York Times reports. He said that three children have died and 73 have become critically ill, showing symptoms closely connected to the disease. The governor explained that these kids do not present the symptoms that we are already familiar with such as respiratory distress. Instead, they often have an inflammation of the blood vessels, which can cause severe heart problems.
Moreover, Cuomo notes that the new symptoms that these children show are similar to toxic shock or Kawasaki disease.
Tragically, the children who have lost the battle with the disease were at a very young age. Two of them were of elementary school age, and the third was an adolescent. The New York health commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said the kids were from three different counties and had no known underlying health issues.
In New York City, health officials warned about the vulnerability of children to coronavirus last week. However, health providers were already alerted on May 1, after hearing reports of the condition from the UK.
Amongst the unfamiliar COVID-19 symptoms were prolonged high fever, racing hearts, rash, and severe abdominal pain.
The president of Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, Dr. David Reich, reported that the cases his hospital treated began with gastrointestinal issues and progressed to very low blood pressure and expanded blood pressure. In some cases, they even led to heart failure. Dr. Reich told The Washington Post:
“No one was expecting a disease that would not fit the pattern of pneumonia and respiratory illness. We were all thinking this is a disease that kills old people, not kids.”
As well as the fact that children may also be critically vulnerable to COVID-19, more distressing data was revealed. Initially, it was believed that the virus destroys the lungs, but now it appears to be attacking the heart by weakening its muscles and disrupting its critical rhythm.
What’s more, it is now considered that the disease ‘savages kidneys so badly some hospitals have run short of dialysis equipment’, as the Post states. The nervous system may also become defenseless to the virus, as it destroys the senses of taste and smell, and occasionally reaches the brain.
Furthermore, Dr. Mandeep Mehra at Harvard Medical School said:
“Our hypothesis is that COVID-19 begins as a respiratory virus and kills as a cardiovascular virus.”
This was related to the belief that coronavirus causes severe complications in the immune system by attacking blood vessels and wreaking cytokine storms.
