COVID-19 is the disease caused by the novel coronavirus (SARS-Cov2). 20% of affected patients develop lung inflammation and damage and this results in low oxygen levels in the body.
Prior work from our labs, and others’, has demonstrated that low oxygen levels in the body alters the responses of the white blood cells (WBC), and that these changes are long lived.
White blood cells are responsible for clearing infections and orchestrating the repair of damaged organs. We propose to investigate the WBC of patients 6-9 months after COVID-19 disease, to ascertain what the longer-term consequences are for WBC function, and whether this differs between patients who had low oxygen levels, and those that did not.
