This* is a good update of some of the findings relating to Covid 19 written in an easy to understand style.
The salient points are:
- The virus causes symptomatic disease in only a fifth of those infected and serious illness in only a quarter of those.
- The virus can affect other organs either by direct invasion of cells or indirectly by damage to blood vessels or inappropriate activation of the immune system or clotting system of the Blood.
- Long term immunity to virus still unknown.
- Some people may have long term sequelae.
- The multiplicity of organs affected is due to the ability of the virus to invade and multiply in cells using the ACE2 as a docking point, this receptor, involved in blood pressure regulation, is found in many cells and not just airways, the gut and heart muscle and most other organs.
* “We Thought It Was Just a Respiratory Virus: We were wrong” – UCSF Magazine (University of California San Francisco, Summer 2020)