Most of the people who fall ill with coronavirus recover. The Johns Hopkins University database provides figures in near real time and, as of today, there are 128,071 deaths from COVID-19 and 501,206 recoveries that have occurred worldwide. However, it is very possible that the numbers of both sides (deaths and recoveries) are higher, since the Johns Hopkins database collects the data provided by the different countries of the world. To give us an idea, in Spain those people who die who have been tested and tested positive are counted as deceased by coronavirus. Asymptomatic people or people with mild symptoms of coronavirus are not normally tested , so if they die, they will not enter the government statistics. Furthermore, according to Maldita.es: “The Ministry has not published a common methodology for all communities to collect information in the same way. Therefore, the data provided by each community may be following different methodologies and may be partial due to delays in the notification of cases. This is what happens, for example, in Catalonia. The Generalitat only counts the people who die in hospitals or other health centers, contrary to what the Government has announced ”. And this is only Spain … Therefore, the figures given by the Johns Hopkins University database should be taken as indicative not as absolute truths.
Does everyone recover from COVID-19 the same?
Last March, Dr. Mike Ryan, Executive Director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, said the following in a press briefing: “Recovery from this disease can take up to six weeks .” In the case of people suffering from serious pathologies, the recovery time can be increased. “People with very serious illnesses can take months to recover from illness,” Ryan said.
“What we’re seeing in patients who wind up on respirators is that they often stay on them for several weeks,” J. Randall Curtis, a professor at the University of Washington Harborview Medical Center, told US News & World Report .
“And then when they come off the ventilator, they are often going to be in the ICU for several days, and then they go back [to a normal hospital unit] for a few days or a week or so to regain strength.”
Are the effects of the coronavirus forever?
Most people with mild cases of COVID-19 recover “with no lasting effect.” Things change for patients who develop serious illnesses. Here’s what Dr. Shu-Yuan Xiao, a professor of pathology at the University of Chicago School of Medicine, told ABC News. According to the doctor, some seriously ill patients may never regain full lung function.
Last month the Hong Kong Hospital Authority, the statutory body that manages all hospitals and government institutes in this Asian territory, reported that, within a group of 12 recovered patients, “two or three” showed a decrease in lung capacity in follow-up consultations. Those few patients gasped when they walked, according to the South China Morning Post . Scans of the lungs of nine patients revealed signs of organ damage.
The reality is that the recovered people have not yet been thoroughly investigated to reach a conclusion. What is known are the effects that severe pneumonia can have on the body. Among other things, it can cause acute respiratory distress (ARDS), which can scar lung tissue .
Do those who have passed the coronavirus become immune?
People who have passed the coronavirus will have developed antibodies that are likely to allow them to fight the virus if it reappears. What is not very clear today is how long that immunity lasts.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview on The Daily Show that he was “willing to bet anything that people who recover are really protected against reinfection.” He also stated that because the virus does not appear to be mutating much, people who recover will likely be immune in the event of a new wave in the fall. “If we get infected in February and March and we recover, next September, October, that person who is infected – I think – will be protected ,” Fauci said.
On the contrary, there are voices that affirm that immunity does not last as long as we believe . The KCDC (Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), under the South Korean Ministry of Welfare and Health, told Yonhap News Agency that a group of 51 people who had recovered from COVID-19 they tested positive later. China has reported similar cases. KCDC Director General Jeong Eun-kyeong believes that the virus is more likely to have reactivated in these people, not that they have become infected again.
What to do if symptoms of COVID-19 are observed?
This is the decalogue published by the Ministry of Health that indicates what to do if you have symptoms of the disease.
Also the recommendations that the Ministry gives for home isolation in mild cases of COVID-19.
