Doctors and Researchers Probe How COVID-19 Attacks the Heart

Experts have a decent grasp on how COVID-19 impacts cardiovascular health in the near term. The implications of long COVID, however, remain mysterious.

Written byDan Robitzski

| 9 min read

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A white coat-wearing doctor holds the results of an EKG test in one hand and traces over them with a pen in the other hand

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Early in the coronavirus pandemic, alarming reports suggested that COVID-19 was more than just a severe respiratory disease. Clinicians quickly learned that the disease could have a dire impact on cardiovascular health and sometimes seemed to attack the heart directly.

Over the following months, hypotheses and speculation gave way to a solid understanding of the cardiovascular risks associated with a COVID-19. Viral infections are notorious for putting added pressure on the system in the form of inflammation, which in turn leads to adverse health outcomes such as cardiovascular injury or disease and strokes, but early data suggested that SARS-CoV-2 is exceptional.

It turns out that COVID-19 can involve a variety of cardiovascular health outcomes. Scientists from the CDC COVID-19 Response Team found that COVID-19 patients have a 16-fold increase in the risk of developing the inflammatory conditions myocarditis and pericarditis while they had COVID-19. Research published in JAMA Neurology in ...

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Meet the Author

Dan Robitzski
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Dan is an award-winning journalist based in Los Angeles who joined The Scientist as a reporter and editor in 2021. Ironically, Dan’s undergraduate degree and brief career in neuroscience inspired him to write about research rather than conduct it, culminating in him earning a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University in 2017. In 2018, an Undark feature Dan and colleagues began at NYU on a questionable drug approval decision at the FDA won first place in the student category of the Association of Health Care Journalists' Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. Now, Dan writes and edits stories on all aspects of the life sciences for the online news desk, and he oversees the “The Literature” and “Modus Operandi” sections of the monthly TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. Read more of his work at danrobitzski.com.
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