Coronavirus killed a healthy patient by bursting open their heart

Autopsy results are now being released and it's being found that people were dying of coronavirus in the United States before the first official death.

The first COVID-19 related death was recorded down to be on February 29th, but now reports are showing that people were dying weeks before that date, suggesting that the virus was already spreading in the US in late January. According to a new report by The Chronicle, people were dying of COVID-19 on February 6th-17th, and one of those people were Patricia Dowd. The autopsy report showed that the virus had made its way into her lungs, trachea, intestines and heart.

It was discovered that the damage the virus did to her heart was what caused Dowd to die, and according to Bay Area forensic pathologist Dr. Judy Melinek who examined the autopsy report, "There's something abnormal about the fact that a perfectly normal heart has burst open. Normal hearts don't rupture. This heart ruptured or tore open because of an infection of the heart muscle caused by the coronavirus."

The next question that was asked was if Dowd was a 'healthy' person. Dr. Susan Parson who was the one who performed the autopsy on Dowd said that Dowd was "mildy obese", but overall was healthy and didn't seem to have any other previous health complications. UCSF pathologist Dr. Andrew Connolly also reviewed the report and said that the patient developed some mild case of pneumonia and related the bursting of her heart to be caused by an autoimmune response.

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