A Spike in Heart Disease Deaths Since Covid Is Puzzling Scientists
Mortality data of the past four years show a wave of deadly cardiovascular and metabolic illness.
Clinicians care for Covid-19 patients in a makeshift intensive care unit in Torrance, California, in early 2021.
Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Almost three weeks before Covid-19 was reported to be spreading in the US, Patricia Cabello Dowd dropped dead in the kitchen of her San Jose, California, home. A previously healthy 57-year-old, Dowd had complained of body aches and flu-like symptoms days earlier, but nothing could explain why she died so suddenly.
Lab results 10 weeks later revealed Dowd, a manager at a Silicon Valley semiconductor firm, was one of the first US Covid fatalities. Inflammation of the heart muscle led to a finger-sized rupture which caused lethal hemorrhage, an autopsy report showed.
