SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — As of Monday, the United State came close to hitting a grim milestone with close to a million COVID-19 cases reported.
As the number of cases continues to grow, so does the number of patients who recover from the deadly virus, but doctors warned that many of them are likely to suffer from long-term effects.
The majority of individuals with COVID-19 symptoms recover on their own, but the more serious cases need hospitalization and in some cases patients are put on ventilators. Those are the patients doctors worry the most.
One emergency room doctor said: "A lot of our patients are showing severe respiratory distress."
“Because the ventilation or the respirators that people are placed on, they can sometimes cause scarring in the lungs or fibrosis, so that can lead to breathing issues down the line," said Dr. Jyotu Sandhu with Sharp Rees-Steely.
As a result, Dr. Sandhu expects the medical community will start seeing a shift.
"We may see an uptick in people maybe now requiring different types of treatments for their lung issues," he said.
Another local physician, Doctor Shawn Evans with Scripps Memorial, spoke about the topic during a recent Washington Post podcast.
"It's not as if this just goes away. When someone has been intubated and they've had significant threat to their lungs, the scar tissue and spasticity can stay with them. Frequently, they're more prone to illness throughout their lives. This has real, large population health consequences that we have yet to encounter," he said.
Aside from the lungs, a new study out of China found that recovered patients had liver function issues as well. Still, as is the case with any new virus, there are many unknowns.
"The vast majority of people who have COVID recover without - what we assume - are not going to have long term complications," Dr. Sandhu pointed out.
In San Diego, the county and regional hospitals reported 823 test results Monday, with 12% returning positive. This represents a considerably higher rate than the rolling average -- around 6% since the pandemic began. There are 1,734 COVID-19 positive individuals who have recovered from the illness, San Diego County health officials estimate, and 363 coronavirus patients were hospitalized as of Monday.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 706 people have been hospitalized due to the illness and 230 have been sent to intensive care units. Around 22.5% of all positive-testing individuals have been hospitalized, 7.3% have entered the ICU at some point and 3.6% have died. The numbers have been provided by San Diego County health offficials.