August 18 coronavirus news

By Jessie Yeung, Adam Renton, Amy Woodyatt and Ed Upright, CNN

Updated 12:00 a.m. ET, August 19, 2020
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10:12 p.m. ET, August 17, 2020

Fauci says Covid-19's long-term effects, especially in young people, are "really troublesome"  

From CNN’s Amanda Watts

Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies during a House Subcommittee on a national plan to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on July 31.
Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies during a House Subcommittee on a national plan to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on July 31. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The top infectious disease doctor in the US, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Monday, “We’d better be careful when we say ‘Young people who don’t wind up in the hospital are fine, let them get infected, it’s OK.’ No, it’s not OK."

“In individuals who are young and otherwise healthy, who don't require hospitalization but do get sick and symptomatic enough to be in bed for a week or two or three and then get better, they clear the virus -- they have residual symptoms for weeks and sometimes months,” he said during a American Society for Microbiology briefing.  

Fauci said subsequent check-ups show that many “have a substantially high proportion of cardiovascular abnormalities, evidence of myocarditis by MRI and PET scans, evidence of emerging cardiomyopathies.” 

He said this is “really troublesome” because it is evolving on a day by day basis.   

“These are people that supposedly recovered from Covid-19,” Fauci said.  

“I'll guarantee you if we have this conversation again, six months to a year from now, we’ll be reviewing the literature about talking about the long-term deleterious effects of non-hospitalized patients,” Fauci said.