Dödligt virus från Kina orsakar panik (SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19)

People who have been infected with coronavirus could see their immunity decline within months, studies have found -- which is just “what we were afraid of,” Dr. William Haseltine told CNN today.
Haseltine, a former professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, said the studies demonstrated long-suspected fears.
"This (virus), like its sister coronaviruses, the ones that give us colds, are very different from the childhood viruses," he said.
When you get childhood viruses like measles and mumps, you're then protected from re-infection for life. But Haseltine said it’s a different story with the cold viruses, because you get them and then your body “forgets” it was ever infected.
“They come back and get you again every year. You can be reinfected by the same cold virus every year and get the same cold," he said. He pointed to various studies in China, Spain and the UK that "actually measured the virus in people and ... the antibodies and watched the immunity decline."

The long-term effects of COVID-19, even on people who suffered a mild infection, could be far worse than was originally anticipated, according to researchers and doctors in northern Italy.

Psychosis, insomnia, kidney disease, spinal infections, strokes, chronic tiredness and mobility issues are being identified in former coronavirus patients in Lombardy, the worst-affected region in the country.

The doctors warn that some victims may never recover from the illness and that all age groups are vulnerable.

The virus is a systemic infection that affects all the organs of the body, not, as was previously thought, just a respiratory disease, they say.

The physicians warn that people who do not consider themselves in a vulnerable group and aren't concerned at contracting the disease could be putting themselves in danger of life-changing illnesses if they ignore the rules to keep safe.

They stress that the need for social distancing, hand washing, and masks is as important now as it ever was.

The warnings come amid growing concerns in northern Italy that a second wave of the virus could be imminent. Doctors in two of the main hospitals in the region have reported a handful of new cases of severely ill people with respiratory problems.

Now he is leading efforts to again send a warning across the globe that COVID-19 is a lethal killer that affects the whole body, and is not going away.

"At first, initially, we thought it was a bad flu, then we thought it was a bad flu with a very bad pneumonia, it was the phase when you came here, but subsequently we discovered that it is a systemic illness with vessel damage in the whole body with renal involvement, cerebral involvement," he told me in the now silent COVID-19 emergency room that was overwhelmed a few months ago.

She is back on neurology, but crucially, whereas in the past she would have treated patients completely independent of other departments, now she can see the link. That link is COVID-19, and it's a multi-organ killer.

"In our hospital now we have a practice with immunologists, who are checking these patients, especially the most severe, those with the most severe illnesses, and they are checking not only lungs, but all the systemic manifestations of COVID pathology," she told me.

"The virus is a systemic infection, some of our apparatus organs have the biggest manifestation, such as lungs as we know, but also brain, skin, and sometimes we have vasculitis, so it's not [just] high respiratory or low respiratory infection, it's not finished [at] that," she said.

The Italian doctors' findings in their patients mirror a recent study carried out at University College London.

Researchers identified serious neurological complications arising from COVID-19 including delirium, brain inflammation, stroke and nerve damage in 43 people aged 16 to 85.

Some of the patients had experienced no severe breathing problems at all, with the neurological disorder being the first and only sign that they had coronavirus.

An intensive testing and follow up analysis of all survivors has been launched in Bergamo. Teams of doctors examine those who have recovered on a constant basis, trying to track the changing properties of the virus.

Filippo Alcaini, 65, is one of the survivors being tested.

He was intubated in February after becoming severely ill, but recovered. He has been COVID-19-free for four months but he still has problems breathing and has periods of severe exhaustion. He accepts his ongoing condition, but sends a clear warning to people to take care not to catch the virus under any circumstances.

"To those who don't respect the rules, I wish they could have a week of what I felt, a week of feeling as bad as I have been," he told me.

"Perhaps then they understand that they cannot underestimate the many warnings and mandatory rules we have been given."

The doctors carrying out the follow-up and testing programme say they simply do not know enough about the virus to predict what is going to happen next.

"It's something very different, that changes the body of the patient," Dr Gianluca Imeri explained to me.

"We've also seen forms of asthma develop after coronavirus infections. We for sure know the damage of coronavirus is caused by inflammation, and asthma and other respiratory diseases are inflammatory diseases, and there are also some inflammatory diseases in our body that can be developed and triggered by coronavirus.

"Simple coronavirus pneumonia is something that patients will recover completely from, from a radiological point of view, but probably the biggest change is inflammation. I mean, we have seen inflammation in all of their bodies, vascular systems, and respiratory systems, so we think we have to tackle inflammation in these patients even when they recover from the acute phase of the disease."

So little is known of the virus that any long-term planning is guess work.

Doctors believe that even the youngest and mildest infected are at risk of their lives being changed forever, and it could take years to become apparent. Whole workforces could become less productive as a consequence.

The advice from Italy is simple: Don't get infected.