By Dr. George Roberts
The sudden unexplained deaths of a number of young men locally, albeit with possible reasonable causes, must be a cause for deep concern for us all. The likelihood that they may be directly or indirectly associated with COVID must be considered.
The suggestion that they may be precipitated by curfew-related inactivity and subsequent thrombosis is reasonable, but does not explain the seeming predilection for young males.
Females are generally more likely to get thrombotic problems, and in general sudden deaths would be more common in the elderly. Something is very rotten in Denmark. I strongly suspect the COVID virus.
Clotting problems in COVID patients and issues re inflammatory reactions in children with the virus are increasingly concerning doctors worldwide.
It is thought that cardiac or intravascular phenomena may contribute these events, and may even have caused illness and death in situations where the lung problems may have been previously blamed. We already see in New York that the initial projected ventilator requirement based on current data was overestimated. And while we are not by any means out of the woods, our ventilator capability has not yet been tested.
The recurring message is clear. The focus may be changing. We need to be vigilant, and base our reactions not only on international data, but also on historical knowledge of our local conditions, careful ongoing reviews of our current situation, and realistic evaluation of our capabilities. I find these unexpected deaths very troubling, and am sure that they are of deep concern to the powers that be.
We need to carefully investigate them, and also aggressively ramp up our testing locally to better evaluate the role of COVID, if any, in the whole mix. Until we get some answers on that front, it may be unwise to further relax the current curfew restrictions.
Otherwise, though we may not get a surge of lung disease, we could end up with a slew of dead young males as a result of as yet unfathomed COVID complications. And with more testing in our encapsulated population, we could even uncover valuable data which may significantly contribute to the international understanding of this scourge.
Oh boy, what next?
3 responses to “Medical Musings: Is COVID a Chameleon?”
Good point doc
With the borders open, with the country stirring, lets see what happens to the deathrate. Afterall basic everyday research at this time, was downplayed by one of the elected leaders. Its a shame that people are asked to throw common sense out of the window because some supposedly learned people dont like the narrative. Just like zika, where microcephaly was a finding that wasnt very obvious initially, we have to MORETHAN consider “PROCEEDING with CAUTION”
That’s so very true, I do that the authorities that be take a closer look at what is been stated, if not we could end up with a multitude of problems, which could be complicated to solve, and which could have a rippling effect on society.