Once the SARS-CoV-2 virus is deeply embedded in the body, it begins to cause more severe disease. This is where the direct attack on other organs that have ACE2 receptors can occur, including heart muscle, kidneys, blood vessels, liver, and the brain. Early findings, including those from multiple autopsy and biopsy reports, show that viral particles can be found not only in the nasal passages and throat, but also in tears, stool, kidneys, liver, pancreas, and heart. One case report found evidence of viral particles in the CSF, meaning the fluid around the brain. That patient had meningitis.
So the virus is sometimes going to all these different organs by means of attaching to the ACE2 receptors that are there, but that’s not even the whole story.
Because in some cases, by the time the body’s immune system figures out the body are being invaded, it’s like unleashing the military to stomp out the virus, and in that process, there’s a ton of collateral damage. This is what we refer to as the cytokine storm. When the virus gets into the alveolar cells, meaning the tiny little air sacs within the lungs, it makes a ton of copies of itself and goes onto invading more cells. The alveoli’s next-door neighbor is guessed who, yeah, the tiniest blood vessels in our body, capillaries. And the lining of those capillaries is called the endothelium, which also has ACE2 receptors. And once the virus invades the capillaries. It means that it serves as the trigger for the onslaught of inflammation AND clotting. Early autopsy results are also showing widely scattered clots in multiple organs. In one study from the Netherlands, 1/3rd of hospitalized with COVID-19 got clots despite already being on prophylactic doses of blood thinners. So not only are you getting the inflammation with the cytokine storm, but you’re also forming blood clots, that can travel to other parts of the body, and cause major blockages, effectively damaging those organs.
