Lock down in UK from Thursday … same weather pattern again as last time !
alioth wrote:
with 70% or so of symptomatic patients (not hospitalised, just symptomatic) who were in the study showing evidence of cardiac damage, there is the possibility that “just letting it rip” will set up millions in the UK alone for long term poor health outlooks.
We as pilots who need to pass medicals should become very aware of this too.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
We as pilots who need to pass medicals should become very aware of this too.
Very interesting aspect of the whole discussion – looking at what EASA does with diabetes patients or how long it took to get reasonable regulations for eye surgery it is at least not completely unthinkable that at least some national CAAs will try to ground pilots with condition after a covid infection for an uncertain time …
Malibuflyer wrote:
it is at least not completely unthinkable that at least some national CAAs will try to ground pilots with condition after a covid infection for an uncertain time …
Just another reason why people will try to dodge the test and trace systems then….
I spoke to a cardiologist (working in aviation medicine) about this some time ago.
He said all respiratory diseases do permanent damage to the heart and lungs. It’s a matter of how bad.
Normally people don’t disclose a flu to an AME, and clearly he or the CAA will never find out unless you ended up in hospital, or it is in your GP record (which the UK CAA requests a copy of on an initial Class 1 application, AIUI).
Peter wrote:
He said all respiratory diseases do permanent damage to the heart and lungs. It’s a matter of how bad.
Sorry Peter but I would dispute this. The correlation between heart and lung is far more intertwined and each feeds the other in a process. The heart is only a pump, serviced by an electrical system, Atria, and oxygenated blood.
You breathe in air from the world around you. In the lungs, the oxygen passes into the bloodstream and attaches to a protein called haemoglobin in the red blood cells.
This oxygenated blood returns to the heart where it is then pumped through the blood vessels around the organs and tissues of the body.
The cells use the oxygen and release carbon dioxide, which is transported in the blood back to the heart.
The heart pumps this deoxygenated blood to the lungs.
The carbon dioxide passes through the thin walls to be released when you breathe out, ready for the whole process to start again.
Now……
Peter wrote:
.He said all respiratory diseases do permanent damage to the heart and lungs. It’s a matter of how bad.
I would qualify that statement. A common cold is unlikely to leave permanent damage. Pneumonia might leave some lasting damage but often unnoticeable in daily life, unless you do sports on a competitive level.
Note that all known Coronaviruses might leave lasting heart damage. This was in my medical textbooks as early as at least 2007, long before Covid-19. They are unlikely to do so, but if you get entire populations infected with such a virus, you are certain to end up with thousands of people with a reduced quality of life and life expectancy through chronic heart disease.
Yes; he referred to detectable damage, not necessarily damage “you” will be aware of, especially if – as most people – you don’t do any exercise.
For historical reasons, the AME business doesn’t ask about the history on this. And probably rightly so because anybody who can walk into the AME’s office, using his own legs, and looks ok, is good enough to fly.
The hell breaks loose if you get one of the special conditions which then trigger additional tests, and often require annual tests for ever. Let’s say you get a stent. You now have an initial process (which varies between EASA and FAA) and then the ECG treadmill every year, for ever, until you stop flying. This is even though stent failures (2nd gen DES) peak at 2 years and peak at something like 1%. Your medicals go from say €100 to something like €500-1000. So over say 20 years you will spend up to 20k on medicals.
CV19 may or may not become one of these triggers; we just don’t know.
MedEwok wrote:
They are unlikely to do so, but if you get entire populations infected with such a virus, you are certain to end up with thousands of people with a reduced quality of life and life expectancy through chronic heart disease.
With respect this will not be caused by Covid/Coronavirus, but by neglect and lack of care by the medical establishment.
BeechBaby wrote:
With respect this will not be caused by Covid/Coronavirus, but by neglect and lack of care by the medical establishment.
I am not sure if I understand correctly what you mean. I guess you mean that some people with heart disease (and others) will suffer from neglect because treatment priorities shift to Covid-19?
