NEW YORK, Some coronavirus patients may suffer brain damage as a result of the devastating infection, doctors around the world are warning. One Florida patient in his 70s lost the ability to speak at least temporarily, The New York Times reported. Brain scans of a woman in her 50s taken in Detroit revealed that some of her brain cells had died as a result of a rare complication of the infection. Similar attacks on the central nervous system have been seen in Italy and China, the complication is being seen as devastating as severe lung disease. While neurological complications so far seem to strike a small subset of the more than 700,000 people who have the virus around the world, the reports paint a worrying picture of its potential for long-term effects. A 58-year-old airline worker, checked into a Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, she already had not only the typical cough and fever seen in coronavirus patients, but was confused, disoriented and lethargic. Doctors there ran a sweeping panel of diagnostic tests on the woman, including screens for the chickenpox virus and West Nile virus. They drew a sample of her cerebrospinal fluid too, to check for signs that a bacterial infection was attacking her central nervous system.—INP
