COVID-19 Patient's Display Non-Pneumonia Lung Damage

A study based in Italy and published by EBioMedicne on November 3, 2020, indicates that COVID-19 represents a unique pathology, distinct from other causes of acute respiratory distress syndrome (pneumonia).

'The long-term persistence of infected cells and the major structural changes detectable in the lungs after several weeks could represent the anatomical substrate for long-term complications in infected patients who survive the acute phase,' stated these researchers.

'We propose that several of the clinical characteristics that set COVID-19 apart from other interstitial types of pneumonia are not attributable to pneumocyte death as a consequence viral replication but to the persistence of virus-infected, Spike-expressing cells in the lungs of the infected individuals.'