Coronavirus Chinese Citizen

While heart disease has been one of the major health concerns in India, Covid-19 has exacerbated the condition significantly, said experts on Monday. According to the Global Burden of Disease, nearly a quarter (24.8 per cent) of all deaths in India is due to cardiovascular diseases (CVD). "Heart disease and Covid are intricately linked. If you remove the 'O' and 'I', Covid becomes CVD. Covid- 19 is like a stress test for the heart," Dr Ramakanta Panda, cardiac surgeon and head of Asian Heart Institute, Mumbai, told IANS. "Covid affects the heart in 20 per cent of the cases," added Dr Bipin Kumar Dubey, Head of Department and Consultant, Cardiology, HCMCT Manipal Hospitals, New Delhi. The cardiologists explained that Covid affects the heart in two ways: first it blocks the coronary artery, second it results in the weakening of the heart muscles. For people who already have a blockage, Covid can cause a full blockage. In those that do not have a blockage, sudden clots can form, leading to a heart attack. In the case of weak heart muscles, these cannot pump blood, patients become breathless, and the risk of an attack increases. Typically, Covid causes heart conditions in those above 60, and with some form of blockage in their body, or co-morbidities like hypertension, obesity, diabetes, or are smokers. However, Dubey noted: "In the last few days, I have seen asymptomatic patients come in, and complain of pain and then suffer from a heart attack. "It is not dependent on how severe Covid is. Even asymptomatic patients can suffer from heart attacks and heart related issues." Even a mild case of Covid-19 can increase a person's risk of cardiovascular problems for at least a year after diagnosis, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature Medicine. Researchers found that rates of many conditions, such as heart failure and stroke, were substantially higher in people who had recovered from Covid than in similar people who hadn't had the disease. "The logic is simple: Covid is known to affect the lungs. The air we breathe contains oxygen and goes to our lungs. When the lungs don't do their job, the heart gets stressed and has to work harder. This increased demand for oxygen may cause heart rhythm disturbances; which in turn might lead to heart attack or heart failure," Panda said. He stated that Covid unmasks silent cardiac symptoms among people with previously undiagnosed heart disease. Further, Panda noted that several chemicals are released by the body to fight the Covid virus. "These can also weaken heart muscles causing clotting of blood among infected patients. Hence, Covid-19 can also present itself as heart disease," he said. (Rachel V Thomas) Read More► Study Finds Cause of Inflammation, Clotting in Severe Covid Patients

New York: Small coronavirus respiratory particles can remain moist and airborne for a longer time and at greater distance than scientists have thought so far. Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates that droplets encased in mucus could remain moist for up to 30 minutes and travel up to about 200 feet. "There are reports of people becoming infected with a coronavirus downwind of an infected person or in a room several minutes after an infected person has exited that room," said Leonard Pease, the corresponding author of the study. "The idea that enveloped virions may remain well hydrated and thus fully infective at substantial distances is consistent with real-world observations. Perhaps infectious respiratory droplets persist longer than we have realised," Pease added. The findings were published in the journal International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer. The team analysed the mucus that coats the respiratory droplets that people spew from their lungs. Scientists know that mucus allows many viruses to travel further than they otherwise would, enabling them to journey from one person to another. Conventional wisdom has been that very small, aerosolised droplets of just a few microns, like those produced in the lungs, dry out in air almost instantly, becoming harmless. But the team found that mucus changes the equation. The team found that the mucus shell that surrounds respiratory droplets likely reduces the evaporation rate, increasing the time that viral particles within the droplets are kept moist. Since enveloped viruses like SARS-CoV-2 have a fatty coating that must be kept moist for the virus to be infectious, the slower evaporation allows viral particles to be infectious longer. "While there have been many factors proposed as variables in how Covid spreads," said Pease, "mucus remains largely overlooked." The focus on mucus also helped the team, in a separate study published in the journal Indoor Air, to address how the virus moves in a multiroom office building. In the study, Chemist Carolyn Burns created artificial, respiratory-like droplets to study how the particles moved from room to room. The scientists found that both low and high levels of filtering were effective at reducing levels of respiratory droplets in all rooms. The team also found that increasing ventilation rapidly reduced particle levels in the source room. But particle levels in the other connected rooms jumped immediately; levels spiked 20 to 45 minutes later with vigorous air changes increasing the spike. Ultimately, after the initial spike, levels of droplets in all the rooms gradually dropped after three hours with filtration and after five hours without it. The scientists noted that increased air exchange for crowded spaces may be beneficial in certain situations, like large conferences or school assemblies, but in normal work and school conditions, it may actually increase transmission rates throughout all rooms of a building. "If you're in a downstream room and you're not the source of the virus, you probably are not better off with more ventilation," said Pease. Read More► Omicron May Cause Brain Complications, Inflammations: Russian Expert