Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young issues sobering COVID-19 message

Jeannette Young has issued a sobering message about the impact COVID-19 has on some patients, even the young, in a grim video posted online. WATCH THE VIDEO

Queensland’s Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young has issued a grim warning about COVID-19’s long-lasting impact on people with the disease, after the state’s latest cluster of cases rose to 24.

In a sobering video message posted on social media, Dr Young said a “reasonable number of people” were failing to fully recover after contracting the virus.

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“They have long-term consequences from the disease and that’s because this virus doesn’t just affect the lungs,” she said.

“This virus can affect every part of the body. They can have long-term consequences that affect not just their lungs, but their heart, their kidneys, their blood vessels and their brain and that can cause significant ongoing disease.”

Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young. Photo: Annette Dew

While most people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, experience mild to moderate symptoms, reports have emerged of some patients developing blood clots that can lead to severe stroke.

A previously “fit and healthy” Sydney general practitioner Dr William Lee, 50, has also told of developing epilepsy and scarring on his heart after he was diagnosed with COVID-19 in April.

Dr Young said research out of the University of Glasgow had shown that, on average, people who died from COVID-19, lost 10 years of life.

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“That’s taking into consideration the age of that person, the sex of that person and any chronic disease that person had,” she said.

“That means that there are quite a number of people who are dying much earlier than they would otherwise have been expected to die. This is a very, very serious disease.

“Also, it’s not just older people who are dying from this disease.”

More than 600 Australians have died from COVID-19 since the coronavirus pandemic began about seven months ago. That includes six Queenslanders.

The youngest Australian to die was aged in this 30s.

Queensland recorded one new cases of coronavirus on Monday, taking the state’s total tally of known infections to 1122.

Since January, almost 900,000 samples have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 in the state.

Queensland’s latest case of the virus was a close contact of someone who worked at the Queensland Corrective Services Training Academy.

Dr Young praised Queenslanders for their hard work in making “sure the disease doesn’t get out into our community”.

“It’s really important we continue to do that,” she said.