“We didn’t know was physiologically possible,” says Bela Suki, a BU College of Engineering professor of biomedical engineering and of materials science and engineering and one of the authors of the study. But exactly how that domino effect occurs has not been clear until now. Those tissues lose oxygen and stop working, no longer infusing the blood stream with oxygen, causing silent hypoxia. Hypoxia’s ability to quietly inflict damage is why it’s been coined “silent.” In coronavirus patients, it’s thought that the infection first damages the lungs, rendering parts of them incapable of functioning properly. Now, thanks to computer models and comparisons with real patient data, Boston University biomedical engineers and collaborators from the University of Vermont have begun to crack the mystery.ĭespite experiencing dangerously low levels of oxygen, many people infected with severe cases of COVID-19 sometimes show no symptoms of shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. One of the biggest and most life-threatening mysteries is how the virus causes “silent hypoxia,” a condition when oxygen levels in the body are abnormally low, which can irreparably damage vital organs if gone undetected for too long.

More than six months since COVID-19 began spreading in the United States, scientists are still solving the many puzzling aspects of how the novel coronavirus attacks the lungs and other parts of the body.

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