How COVID-19 Affects The Brain

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

Many patients who are hospitalized for COVID-19 continue to have symptoms of brain injury after they are discharged. For many, brain function improves as they recover, but some are likely to face long-term disability. As NPR science correspondent Jon Hamilton explains, research into all the ways the coronavirus affects the brain is ongoing but research shows it can affect everything from loss of smell to memory problems. Read Jon's piece here.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to shortwave from NPR.
0:04.6	Hey everybody, Emily Quang here with our favorite brain reporter and PR science correspondent
0:11.4	John Hamilton.
0:12.4	Hi John.
0:13.4	Hi Emily.
0:14.4	Hi so you're here today to talk about how a disease that attacks the lungs can also damage
0:20.8	the brain.
0:21.8	I'm talking of course about COVID-19.
0:23.5	Yes, it's continuing to infect and kill record numbers of people in the US.
0:28.1	In fact, I saw just in the past seven days around 3,000 people have died every day.
0:34.7	And even though a vaccine is being rolled out, it looks like the number of cases will keep
0:37.9	going up for weeks if not months.
0:40.2	Yeah.
0:41.2	And some of these cases have shown us that COVID can really do damage beyond your lungs.
0:45.7	What can COVID-19 do to your brain?
0:48.2	So you may remember way back in April, I interviewed David Williams.
0:52.4	He's in his mid 50s.
0:53.8	He's a veteran service coordinator at the University of Central Arkansas.
0:58.0	And he's spent more than a week on a ventilator after he got COVID-19.
1:01.6	Yeah, I do remember David.
1:03.6	He was on shortwave a while back.
1:05.7	Yeah.
	...

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