According to a report undergoing peer review at a Nature Research journal, COVID-19 can disrupt the heart’s electric system. The heart pumps blood by sending electrical signals through its “conducting cells” to tell “muscle cells” to contract. Normally, each conducting cell activates the one next to it in a domino effect to ensure steady contractions. An autopsy of a COVID-19 cardiac arrest subject noticed the virus had infected her heart in an unusual patchy pattern, “with small islands of infected cells here and there,” Dr. Jay Schneider of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota told Reuters. Upon further study in the laboratory, his team realized the spike protein on the surface of the new coronavirus can create holes among neighboring cells, causing them to fuse together. Hence rather of orderly electrical signal transmission and a steady heart rhythm, the signals course like “a tsunami tidal wave” through the fused cells. Read more on University of Wisconsin-Madison research.
The new findings can assist hospitals implement more select attention and are “also important for family members and people that work with the elderly to better identify possible warning signs of COVID-19 infection,” coauthor Dr. Christopher Clifford of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai told Reuters
Proper hand-washing to avoid coronavirus and other infectious diseases includes the following steps.
- Be sure to get your hands wet by placing them under a running water faucet or other sources of hot or cold running water.
- Apply soap on the palm of your hand and lather the soap by rubbing both palms together.
- With the palm of the hand, make sure to rub soap on the back of the other hand and repeat using the opposite side.
- After lathering the palms and back of the hand on both sides, lather between fingers, fingertips, wrists, and thumb of both hands thoroughly. The whole process from washing with the soap from between palms to the fingertips and thumbs should take at least 20 seconds.
- After 20 seconds of scrubbing and lathering, rinse the palm of the hand, back of the hand, between fingers, fingertips, wrists, and thumb with clean running water from the faucet or other freshwater sources.
- If using a faucet, turn off the tap water by using your elbow or a paper towel.
- Dry both hands with a fresh paper towel or air dry thoroughly.
If you have questions about COVID-19 or novel coronavirus, please visit the following resources:
- Alberta.ca/COVID19 – Learn about COVID-19 and actions being taken to protect the health of Albertans
- AHS COVID-19 Response – Information for Albertans and Health Professionals
- More info about COVID-19 from the Public Health Agency of Canada can be found here
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