Inside STAT: From nose to toe, Covid-19 attacks like no other 'respiratory' virus

(HYACINTH EMPINADO/STAT)

Despite being a respiratory virus, the effects of SARS-CoV-2 are anything but restricted to the body's airways. Some patients have experienced a loss of taste or have felt nauseous. Others have been left with acute kidney injury. One possible explanation underlying the coronavirus' multipronged attack may lie in the fact that the virus uses the ACE2 receptor to enter cells. And at least two decades of research show that these receptors are found all over the body, from the insides of blood vessels to inside the GI tract and kidney tubules. As a result, some Covid-19 patients have even had to have their gut removed. “You see these cases and you say, wait a minute; the virus is doing this, too? It has definitely been keeping us on our toes,” infectious disease physician Rochelle Walensky tells STAT's Sharon Begley. Read more — and watch an accompanying video from STAT's Hyacinth Empinado — here.