You may be thinking that the elderly or the people who have underlying respiratory health issues are the ones at risk, but you are far from correct. Doctors have been stumped by a cause of unexplained deaths that take the infected suddenly and result in their deaths.
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What's The Cause And What's It Called?
It's called a "cytokine storm," doctors are still baffled at how it happens. There are numerous cases where a patient seems to be recovering from the virus but rapidly deteriorates and leads to their death.
The immune system fights the pathogen or virus typically once it enters the body, many COVID-19 patients will never show the symptoms of the disease, or maybe experience a very mild case. All of these patients, however, symptomatic or asymptomatic, can still spread the disease.
Once the immune system of the infected wins, they will have acquired immunity from the novel coronavirus that is hitting our global population in the millions now, granted if the virus doesn't mutate that much.
Remember, viruses always mutate some way or another, and we've written an article about this that explains why it's essential to know the two types of strains the coronavirus has. The link will be provided here.
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What's The Issue?
Some patients seem to recover like those so-called mild cases like fever and aches, only to worsen in a moment's notice dramatically. This turns out that the immune system is at fault here, and hence it goes into overdrive, which ends up attacking the patient's entire body.
Dr. Pavan Bhatraju of the University of Washington told NPR, "We've seen some patients rapidly worsen," and added, "They initially were requiring a little bit of oxygen. In 24 hours, they're on a ventilator."
The good doctor, as well as some of his peers, have made a study about the rapid deterioration of lungs in coronavirus cases.
The crash happens seven days after the infection, and no one, not even the healthy are safe. Young patients who don't have any other symptoms can also be affected. Doctors now believe that the "cytokine storm" causes the negative evolution of COVID-19 in some of the patients.
The cytokine molecules are supposed to be the ones coordinating the battle against the infections within the body. They alert immune cells to attack the virus and so forth.
Cytokine storms, however, aren't unique to COVID-19, and doctors already know how to treat them, at least in theory. The solution is that the immune response has to be lowered in patients who have poor prognostics. COVID-19, however, is a new type of sickness, and still, there are no known protocols for it.
Doctors are having a rough time about this because, on the one hand, you'd like to treat the coronavirus; on the other, the theory dictates to lower the immune system more. So, for now, they are at an impasse and will most probably hope for the cure to come as soon as it can.
