COVID-19 and Heart Health

By Eunice Kim

Cypress High School

As high school sports camps are starting to reopen with social distancing rules, concerning data is beginning to emerge regarding the safety of these camps. Recently, over two dozen male and female athletes from Ohio State University - who all had positive SARS-CoV-2 results - underwent a small study where they received magnetic resonance imaging on their hearts. The scans revealed that four students had swelling in their heart muscle and/or potential damage to cells. This hints at potential myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscles from, often, viral infections. Although the correlation between COVID-19 and heart strain is inconclusive, it still indicates caution for all athletes returning to sports post-corona.

One limitation of this study is that there were no images taken before the athletes had SARS-CoV-2, so researchers are unable to make a comparison. A cardiologist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Dr. Saurabh Rajpal, says that it's difficult to attribute any cardiac changes to the coronavirus as of now. From this point on, Dr. Rajpal and his team plan to gather more data and scans to draw a more conclusive verdict.

Until more information comes out, I believe that high schools and colleges should temporarily halt their athletic camps. In college athletes, an NCBI report in 2015 found that an estimated 10 percent of sudden cardiac deaths were because of myocarditis. And more recent evidence from 100 German adult patients who had recovered from the coronavirus showed that about 60 people had signs of heart inflammation. Because there are still preliminary cautions that we should take in terms of transmission and myocarditis, it’s unsafe for players to return to the field this quickly.

To get their opinions on sports camps, I interviewed two high school students. Lois Chun, a tennis player at Cypress High School, said “I think that young people shouldn’t be playing as much sports compared to pre-corona, especially because many sports require you to be outside. This is even more so now because there’s a potential linkage between COVID-19 and myocarditis.” Similarly, a senior at Fairmont Preparatory Academy, Kenneth Yang, said that “With the current status on COVID-19 and new research being given, we cannot be fully certain that it’s safe for students to play sports even with social distancing. I think schools that reopen their sports teams for the season this year are under the influence of the NBA and soccer league opening without having an audience. It’s a wrong call to make. Bottom line, too dangerous.”

This study is an important reminder for youth that they are still vulnerable to the coronavirus even if it is less likely. Even if the coronavirus doesn’t seem to have any immediate effect on the younger populations, this fatal virus has already taken about 920,000 lives across the word. And unfortunately, the number is still growing. Let’s all stay safe, so that we can hit the ground running after the pandemic has passed.