Coronavirus Education

Coronavirus Education


Ep. 9 – Coronavirus: This test may be more important than testing for COVID-19

March 24, 2020

According to Dr. Lewis, initially, a small percentage of the population with be tested for the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Yet everyone can be tested for their risk of severe symptoms. People with chronic conditions and immunocompromised people die from COVID-19 at rates up to 1200% higher compared to healthy people. Dr. Lewis discusses testing that established how “immunocompromised” you are and then gives solutions to increase your odds against severe symptoms or dying from COVID-19. Paragraph The concept of immunocompromised status is not well defined but much discussed since the pandemic of COVID-19 disease. Harvard Medical School, at their hospital, Mass General, risk stratifies people who are hospitalized and test positive for the novel coronavirus. They do this to determine appropriate case urgency. The blood tests that Dr. Lewis and his team developed are similar yet more comprehensive compared to those performed by Harvard. Importantly, Dr. Lewis’ tests are available to anyone while those at Mass General are only for people already hospitalized with COVID-19