Do Medical Complications and Lingering Effects Make COVID-19 an Unusually Dangerous Diseases?
This is a review of the evidence concerning the medical complications and lingering effects of COVID-19 by an epidemiologist and a retired Professor of Forensic and Biological Anthropology. COVID-19 death rates have fallen across much of Europe since a peak in early April, irrespective of governments’ responses to the virus. Even in those countries at lower latitudes – Brazil, India and the southern United States – death rates also appear to be falling, following a flatter trajectory. These patterns are akin to those of another seasonal respiratory virus – influenza, where declining fatality rates reflect a natural seasonal waning of the disease. In the absence of a high seroprevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, the evidence of natural immunity – including innate and T-cell mediated immunity and cross-immunity conferred by exposure to other coronaviruses – offers an explanation at the community, cellular and molecular level for how immunity to COVID-19 may be leading to a decline in infection rates across the world. Nonetheless, acute complications of COVID-19 in children, and the persistence of symptoms following serious and, as noted in the media, mild illness may be seen as posing sufficient risk to justify attempts to maximally suppress SARS-CoV-2 through ongoing or intensified Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions. But how substantial are the complications of COVID-19 in children? What are the connotations of symptom persistence? And are ...