SARS-CoV-2 Is a Very Weird Virus

Once again, a study shows that the effects of COVID are weirder than what we’d expect from “really bad flu”.

In the early days of the pandemic, before we really understood what COVID was, there were two specialties in the hospital that had a foreboding sense that something was very strange about this virus. The first was the pulmonologists, who noticed the striking levels of hypoxemia — low oxygen in the blood — and the rapidity with which patients who had previously been stable would crash into the Intensive Care Unit. The second, and I mark myself among this group, were the nephrologists. Because the dialysis machines stopped working right. I remember rounding on patients in the hospital receiving dialysis for kidney failure in the setting of severe COVID infection and seeing these clots forming on the dialysis filters. We had some patients that could barely get in a full treatment because the filters would clog so quickly.

We knew it was worse than flu because of the mortality rates — but these strangenesses made us realize it was different too — not just a particularly nasty respiratory virus — but one that had effects on the body that we hadn’t really seen before.

That’s why I’ve always been interested in studies that compare what happens to patients after…