Why some COVID-19 infections may be free of symptoms but not free of harm.

Renju Mohan
3 min readSep 8, 2021

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The images, which were taken by a medical team aboard the ship, revealed signs of COVID infection in the passengers’ lungs. CT scans revealed disturbing images of what’s happening in people with asymptomatic diseases, according to Jonathan Topol. The scans, which he and co-author Daniel Oran conducted, showed that patients did not seem to have symptoms.

A person’s chances of developing an asymptomatic lung disease are higher than those of people with severe disease, according to cardiologist James Topol. However, he says, studies on asymptomatic individuals have been stopped since the Diamond Princess case was publicized. Scientists are still not exactly sure about the effects of asymptomatic infections.

One of the biggest obstacles scientists face is estimating how many people have COVID-19 infections. This figure could vary widely depending on how many people were never tested. There is some evidence suggesting that people with COVID-19 experience serious harm, such as blood clots and heart damage. The syndrome is characterized by a wide range of symptoms.

A chest scan can also reveal abnormalities in the blood and organs of people who aren’t displaying symptoms of a serious illness. These include the lungs and kidneys. Getting clumpy in a vein can prevent an organ from getting enough blood to function. It can cause various conditions such as stroke, aneurysm, and death.

In a study published in JAMA, researchers from Washington State reported that a patient with asymptomatic kidney disease experienced unexplained blood clots after being infected with COVID-19. Studies suggest that asymptomatic infections can cause harm to the circulatory system. In May, MRI scans of college athletes revealed signs of inflammation in their heart muscle. Although asymptomatic patients don’t usually exhibit any symptoms, these findings raise concerns about the safety of these tests. It can happen that myocarditis doesn’t resolve over time. It could then develop into a more serious illness. For instance, COVID-19 infections could cause inflammation in the heart. Even though most infections are mild, Rajpal says that being diagnosed with an asymptomatic infection still requires being teased out. Also, being a COVID-19 long-hauler can be challenging to diagnose.

Linda Geng, a professor of medicine at Stanford Health Care, says that people with COVID-19 syndrome may not know if they will get long COVID. She also warns that they may experience debilitating symptoms. Studies aimed at assessing how many long COVID symptoms have differed with silent infections. FAIR Health, a U.S. non-profit healthcare company, finds that almost a fifth of asymptomatic patients have become long-distance patients through a healthcare analysis. Another peer reviewed study utilized data from the electronic health records of the University of California and calculated this to be 32 percent.

The scientists examined records of health care in people who tested positive for COVID-19 but didn’t report signs at the time of infection only to come in subsequent with symptoms associated to long COVID-18, says Melissa Pinto, a co-author of the latter study and assistant professor in the Sue& Bill Gross Nursing School at the University of California Irvine. The researchers examined anybody who had a pre-existing disease to explain their later symptoms to guarantee they identified long distance cars.

“It’s not a chronic illness,” she explains. “New symptoms are these.”

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Renju Mohan

A student and self made content creator, who is more interested in technology, photography and videography.