Some hospitals are putting all COVID-19 patients on low doses of blood thinners.
As doctors learn more about what makes COVID-19 so severe for some patients, they have discovered a mysterious and potentially lethal complication of the disease: blood clots.
Many doctors have reported seeing an alarming number of COVID-19 patients with blood clots — gel-like clumps in the blood that can cause serious problems, such as heart attack and stroke, according to news reports.
“The number of clotting problems I’m seeing in the ICU [intensive care unit], all related to COVID-19, is unprecedented,” Dr. Jeffrey Laurence, a hematologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, told CNN.
Some doctors started to notice that their COVID-19 patients were developing clots in their legs, even while they were on blood thinners, according to The Washington Post. Others reported trouble with dialysis machines for COVID-19 patients, because clots in the patients’ blood would clog the machine tubing, according to CNN.
Washington Post: A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients