A spike in heart attacks in mid-February could have been an early sign that the coronavirus was starting to spread in New York City before it became the epicenter for the illness in mid-March.
Data from New York shows that there was an uptick in 911 calls for cardiac arrest in Brooklyn and Queens in mid-February.
Before the virus caused the shutdown of cities and states, doctors had warned of persistent fever, dry cough and labored breathing as some of the most severe symptoms.
But since then, medical professionals have noted a link between the virus and heart damage. It’s still unclear how the virus attacks the heart.
New York City Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Chief Lillian Bonsignore told ABC News: ‘It was astounding. We went from normal to wartime EMS in a week. And then it was just explosive and it continued.
Data from New York shows that there was an uptick in 911 calls for cardiac arrest in Brooklyn and Queens in mid-February
New York City EMS call data broken down by zip code shows that the increase in cardiac arrest calls and deaths aligned with the increase in COVID-19 cases
‘We went from about 70 or 80 [cardiac arrests] a day which is what we normally do, to almost five times the amount,’ Bonsignore said. ‘I really was very surprised. I’ve never experienced a global pandemic.’
New York City EMS call data broken down by zip code shows that the increase in cardiac arrest calls and deaths aligned with the increase in COVID-19 cases.
Dr Fred Jacobs, the former commissioner of health in New Jersey, told ABC News that the ‘data is showing an increase in cardiac arrest calls in the areas that also show an increase in COVID-19. So the question will be, “Is it causative?”.’
‘There are a lot of contributory factors here coming together in a perfect storm… This is a good part of the picture, but we also need a deeper dive into the data,’ Jacobs added.
Shortly after the spike in heart attacks, New York City became the epicenter for the coronavirus on March 20. The city has recorded more than 165,000 confirmed cases and 12,700 deaths.
It was recently revealed that America’s first coronavirus victim, Patricia Dowd, 57, died from a ruptured heart, which was triggered by an attack from the virus, according to an autopsy report.
There are more than 1 million coronavirus cases in the US and 61,568 deaths
She died at her home in Santa Clara County, which is 48 miles south of San Francisco, on February 6.
THREE WAYS CORONAVIRUS MIGHT ATTACK THE HEART
Coronavirus may be attacking the heart in one or a combination of ways, Dr Robert Bonow, a Northwestern University cardiology professor, told DailyMail.com.
He and his colleagues see a familiar pattern in coronavirus patients that the’ve observed in patients severely ill with flu.
‘With influenza epidemics, we see increases in people having heart attacks just because of the higher stress it puts on the body,’ he explained.
‘When an infection like flu, or in this case, COVID-19, occurs, other things happen.’
The lungs’ damage from coronavirus sets of a cascade of problems in the body.
Lungs that are struggling to take in oxygen mean less oxygen reaching the blood stream and, thus, the heart itself.
As the immune system mounts response, white blood cells and other defenders flood the body, causing inflammation that’s necessary to fighting off pathogens, but can sometimes go too far and cause its own damage.
Inflammation, in fact, is ultimately to blame for most COVID-19 deaths.
‘[In the midst of] severe inflammation, many times heart attacks occur because coronary plaques’ – cholesterol deposits in the arteries – ‘become unstable, break down and cause clots that block arteries,’ says Dr Bonow.
But COVID-19 also has a unique weapon that allows it to attack the heart.
‘With COVID specifically, what you see that you don’t with the flu, is because under a microscope, coronavirus has all these spikes coming out of it, and those spikes are little proteins that are looking for receptors on the cells that they attach onto,’ Dr Bonow explained.
‘It’s specifically looking for receptors in the lungs, but those same receptors sit on blood vessels, so it can attach on the lungs but also on blood vessels.’
Once they dock onto these blood vessel cells, the viral particles can trigger damage to these as well as to heart muscle, Dr Bonow says.
They can trigger ‘hypercolagual states,’ causing blood clots that lead to heart attacks.
In younger and healthier coronavirus patients, the heart muscle itself may become infected, a condition called mycarditis.
NUMBER OF HEART ATTACK PATIENTS IN THE ER FALLS AMID PANDEMIC FEARS
Earlier this month, a group of cardiologists revealed that emergency rooms across the US began seeing less than half the usual number of heart attack patients as beds are filled by those infected with coronavirus.
A Twitter poll by Angioplasty.org found that doctors reported a 40 per cent to 60 per cent reduction in hospital admissions for heart attacks.
Nearly one-fifth of physicians reported more than a 60 per cent reduction in cardiology patients.
Healthcare workers say they are surprised by the findings because they expected to see more heart attacks occur during the pandemic.
Not only do upper respiratory infections like COVID-19 increase the risk of heart attacks, but stress – which may occur during a pandemic – is known to at least double the risk of heart attacks.
One reason that patients may be staying home is that they would rather experience their symptoms there than risk being infected with coronavirus at a hospital.
When they finally do arrive at a hospital, they are either in the late stages of a heart attack or their health has deteriorated.
America’s first coronavirus victim, 57, died in February after the infection caused her heart to ‘burst’
Patricia Dowd was the first victim in the US to die from the virus.
Dowd, 57, died from a ruptured heart, which was triggered by an attack from the virus, an autopsy report reveals.
She died at her home in Santa Clara County, which is 48 miles south of San Francisco, on February 6.
Because she had gone untested, her death went unreported. But a recent investigation found she was infected with COVID-19 – the disease caused by the virus – meaning it had been spreading in the US weeks earlier than suspected.
Patricia Dowd (left) was the first victim in the US to die from the virus. Dowd, 57, died from a ruptured heart, which was triggered by an attack from the virus, an autopsy report reveals
Doctors initially believed she had died after suffering a heart attack.
However, an autopsy report exclusively obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle reveals the infection had spread to her heart muscle, which caused a valve in her heart to burst.
‘There’s something abnormal about the fact that a perfectly normal heart has burst open,’ forensic pathologist Dr Judy Melinek, who was not involved in the autopsy, told the Chronicle.
‘The heart has ruptured. Normal hearts don’t rupture. This heart ruptured or tore open because of an infection of the heart muscle caused by the coronavirus.’
Dr Susan Parson, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy, found coronavirus in Dowd’s heart, lungs, trachea and intestines.
Dowd was described in the report as ‘mildly obese’ but had no other medical conditions listed.