Endotheliitis after COVID-19 Infection Requires Optimization of Chronic Disease Prevention

Abstract

The global impact of COVID -19 viral pandemic I n December 2019, WHO reported the occurrence of a new coronavirus infection epidemic (2019-nCoV, SARS-CoV2, so-called COVID -19) in Wuhan, China. 1 With rather short incubation period, median of 4 days, COVID -19 rapidly spread over China within two months. 2 This outbreak became one of the fastest pandemics the world has ever seen, and the number of global infected cases rose from 750,890 in March 2020 to over 266 million in August 2021, with the death toll increasing from 36,405 to nearly 4.4 million. 3 Therefore, this novel virus created serious burden worldwide, not only for healthcare services but also the global economic system. It was estimated that COVID -19 virus reduced the annual global economic growth rate to -3.4% to -7.6% in 2020. 4 In June 2020, the World Bank reported that Thailand's economy had been shrinking by at least 5 % and it is expected to take more than two years for a full recovery to occur. 5 In Thailand, the number of PCR confirmed COVID-19 cumulative cases rose to over one million (1,120,869) cases, the cumulative death rate reaching 10,314 with peak mortality rates over 200 cases per day in August 2021. 6 Although the majority of cases had only mild symptoms, critical cases developed severe pneumonia, respiratory failure, and many people died. [7][8][9][10] Most of the death occurred in elderly patients, specifically those with chronic, non-communicable disease (NCD) such as DM, HT, CVD, HT, CKD, and chronic lung disease. [7][8][9][10][11] At the beginning, the pathogenic link between NCD and the COVID -19 infection was not entirely clear.