A coronavirus infection takes unpredictable paths from person to person. Although there are some obvious factors, such as age or underlying conditions, that could put someone at higher risk for a more serious COVID case, even young and seemingly healthy individuals have died from the virus. As a result, many people remain concerned that if they become ill, their condition may worsen at any time. Fortunately, health experts are learning how to see if people with severe coronavirus will experience complications. According to research, the virus that can determine if your COVID case will be severe or mild. Read on to find out how it can affect you, and discover more information about coronavirus. The one thing that can stop you from avoiding COVID, according to doctors.
Your virus load is the amount of virus in your body – inversely measured in Ct values. If your Ct value is higher, you have a lower virus load; if your Ct is lower, you have a higher virus load. A recent study published in December in Open Forum Infectious Diseases found that patients with a Ct of less than 22 were more than four times more likely to die within 30 days compared to those with higher Ct levels or lower viral loads.
And an older study from September published in Cell researchers recorded viral loads in more than 3,000 patients hospitalized in the coronavirus on the first day they were admitted. The researchers found that 40 percent of patients with Ct levels died 25 or less while in the hospital, compared with only 15 percent of patients with higher Ct levels. And for more risks to note, this bad habit may increase your risk of dying from COVID, says doctor.
A study conducted by the Nevada Department of Public Health found that people who were asymptomatic had an average Ct value of 29.6. This suggests that those who do not experience symptoms with their COVID case may carry a lower virus load than those who do. It helps to correlate higher virus load with the risk of developing symptoms, which can lead to a severe or even fatal case of coronavirus. And for more information on dangerous COVID cases, if you have them on your skin, you can have serious COVID, study programs.
Fortunately, it does not have to be a complicated matter to track your Ct levels. Your virus load can be determined by ordinary PCR. test that most laboratories use to diagnose a COVID infection, The New York Times reports. These tests are performed in ‘cycles’, doubling the amount of viral genetic material extracted from a patient’s sample. If your virus load is higher, the test only needs to be a few cycles to diagnose you. So if you get a positive coronavirus result at a low cycle threshold (Ct), it means you have a high virus load. If many cycles need to be performed before a positive test is produced, you most likely have a lower viral load. And sign up for our daily newsletter for more information.
Daniel Griffin, MD, a doctor at Infectious Diseases at Columbia University, tells The New York Times that detecting viral loads “can actually help us stratify the risk.” And this has been documented in research several times throughout the course of the pandemic.
Griffin says knowledge of a patient’s viral load can help hospital workers mitigate needs between patients by predicting the course of their case. For example, some patients need an oxygen check-up only once a day while others need to be monitored more closely because they are at greater risk for complications. And for coronavirus symptoms you need to know, according to Johns Hopkins it goes to The earliest signs you have.
To date, tracking viral loads in COVID patients has not been a top priority. But many hope it will change with new guidance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On December 10, they said that clinical laboratories could consider reporting an estimate of the virus load along with their coronavirus infection results.
“This is a very important step by the FDA,” Michael Mina, MD, an epidemiologist at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, tells The New York Times. “I think it’s a step in the right direction to make optimal use of one of the only information we have for many positive individuals.” And for more information on the current state of the pandemic, these are the only four states where COVID is not rising.