On Tue, 24 Mar 2020 09:07:21 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 3/24/2020 8:53 AM, John wrote:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2020 08:13:00 -0400, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:



I pose this question to our rec.boats medical staff: :-)

I've heard and read that the coronavirus itself is *not* what causes
illness, particularly pneumonia. Rather, it is your immune system going
into overdrive trying to fight off the virus invasion to your system,
resulting in fever, congestion in lungs, resultant shortness of breath etc.

If this is true ... why are older people with *weakened* immune systems
more susceptible to becoming seriously ill if the immune system is
really causing the symptoms to manifest themselves?

Here's a pretty good article indicating the virus does cause pneumonia and
describing the how and why:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...y-get-covid-19



That article seems to cast blame on the virus itself ... and maybe it is.

What I've read and heard though is it isn't the virus per se that causes
the inflamation, mucus build up and fever. It's your immune system that
causes it as it tries to kill off the invading foreign virus.

Here's a description of how the immune system reacts to the common
cold .... which is a virus in the same general family as corvin-19:

https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-the-medical-immunity-3955691

There are other articles more specific to the current corvid-19 virus
that I've read also. I'll see if I can find them again.

That might be true of most corona viruses like the common cold. Your
nose is running and you are sneezing, trying to flush the virus out.
Your body can't really tell it isn't pollen or dust.