While they may not be hospitalized for respiratory illnesses, “we are seeing some exacerbation of other conditions in individuals who are vulnerable,” said Dr. Sandra Nelson, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. In some cases, patients were dehydrated from the effects of a virus infection and came in with kidney failure.
Doctors say that it is not always clear what role Omicron plays, but there is a plausible biological explanation for a virus causing patients to develop systemic issues. “You’re going to see kidneys get worse, etc.,” said Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a critical care specialist and assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
At St. Luke’s, where Ms. Perez was admitted, roughly two-thirds of the coronavirus-positive patients in the system’s network had a primary diagnosis of Covid, but an additional 15 to 20 percent were diagnosed with other illnesses, like sepsis or acute kidney failure, that doctors said were clearly related to a virus infection.
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