Covid-19 leaves its imprint on the heart

Two new studies from Germany paint a sobering picture of the toll that Covid-19 takes on the heart, raising the specter of long-term damage after people recover. One found high levels of the virus in the hearts of 24 patients whose average age was 85. The other found signs of heart damage in 78 out of 100 younger, healthier people. None thought they had anything wrong with their heart, the researcher told me.

Other developments in the continuing pandemic: 

• A Democratic group warns that the U.S. is fundamentally unprepared to manufacture and distribute hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses when one becomes available, STAT’s Lev Facher reports, urging Congress to step up preparedness efforts and spend $40 billion to quickly increase manufacturing and distribution capacity. 
• The latest round of Covid-19 relief could include a dramatic increase in new funding for public health initiatives, according to draft legislation released by Senate Republicans, Lev also reports.
• Eleven states with surging rates of Covid-19 cases are straining their supply of doctors trained to work in intensive care units, a report from George Washington University says. Arizona and Texas are already struggling to find enough intensivists, and Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington are not far behind.
• Six months ago, the first Covid-19 case was diagnosed in the U.S. in a man who had returned home to Washington state from Wuhan, China. “I heard like everyone else through the news that there had been a positive case in Snohomish County,” U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, the Democrat who represents the district where that case occurred, tells STAT’s Andrew Joseph. “In terms of how quickly it might spread, I don’t think any of us knew.”