Could the research behind COVID-19 improve our understanding of hypoxia and its treatments? Could this knowledge be used to prepare for future respiratory based virus pandemics?
That is the hope. We hope that the research around COVID-19 improves everything from whether or not we can develop adequate vaccines and antivirals, to developing treatments that help control the immune response. This virus seems to trigger an over-reactive immune response or the cytokine storm.
Research is looking into all those aspects of COVID-19, not just hypoxia, and trying to recognize what is occurring in the body that leads to these derangements - not just low oxygen level, but increased levels of inflammatory markers and increase the involvement of blood vessels, the muscles, the heart, the kidneys, and the brain.
I think we are learning from this illness. What we learn about silent hypoxia might help us discover more about these symptoms in other respiratory viruses. In general with the virus, we will learn a lot more as we see what other aspects of our body’s physiology are affected. There will still be a lot to learn in the aftermath of the pandemic.