A startling video shows how coronavirus attacked the lungs of a healthy man and killed him.
The Covid-19 patient was a 59-year-old with no issues apart from high blood pressure.
He had been asymptomatic a few days before he was admitted to The George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C. after his initial symptoms - fever, cough and shortness of breath - quickly escalated.
The patient was connected to a ventilator and medics used Virtual Reality (VR) to see into his lungs, where they discovered concerning results.
A pair of healthy lungs would be completely blue in the video, yet this man's alveoli (air sacs) are suffocated with yellow - representing the inflammation from the virus.
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Inflammation prevents the lungs being able to oxygenate the blood and to remove carbon dioxide. This causes a patient to gasp, or inhale a lot of air to balance the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels
Dr Keith Mortman told the New York Times it was "striking" the damage the virus had caused to both of the man's lungs.
"About one week of being at our hospital, unfortunately he passed away," Dr Mortman said.
“Other than high blood pressure, he has no other significant medical issues. This is a guy who’s minding his own business and gets it."
Some experts have compared Covid-19 to ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome) which creates a thick layer on top of the tissue lining the outer surfaces of organs and blood vessels.
As the layer becomes thicker, it stops oxygen from entering the blood stream and suffocates organs.
Dr Mortman added of the video: “What we’re seeing is that there was rapid and progressive damage to the lungs so that he needed higher levels of support from that ventilator and it got to the point where he needed maximal support from the ventilator.
"That was when the outside hospital reached out to our expert team here at GW and the patient was transferred to us for something called ECMO, which stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.”
ECMO, which involves removing blood from the body, infusing it with oxygen and returning it to the body, is one of several advanced technologies being used as GW Hospital treats its first patient with Covid-19
The doctor continued: “There is such a stark contrast between the virus-infected abnormal lung and the more healthy, adjacent lung tissue.
"And it’s such a contrast that you do not need an MD after your name to understand these images. This is something the general public can take a look at and really start to comprehend how severe the amount of damage this is causing the lung tissue.
"The damage we’re seeing is not isolated to any one part of the lung. This is severe damage to both lungs diffusely."
Dr Mortman is especially concerned with the possibility of enduring damage to the lungs of those who survive Covid-19.
“When that inflammation does not subside with time, then it becomes essentially scarring in the lungs, creating long-term damage,” he said.
“It could impact somebody’s ability to breathe in the long term."
He also said that about 20 percent of those who contract Covid-19 develop symptoms and a portion of those develop severe symptoms that ultimately require mechanical assistance to breathe.
“For approximately 2-4 percent of patients with Covid-19, the damage is irreversible and they will succumb to the disease,” he added.
"My goal into getting this out into the public is so they understand the severity of the problem we are seeing and why the social distancing is just so important.
"This is a global problem..everyone has a role to play. The virus doesn't move on its own - people move which transmits the virus."
For many, coronavirus is mild but for others it is deadly, killing more than 82,000 people around the world.
But if you suffer symptoms, like shortness of breath this is an indication the virus has reached the lungs.
It can take three to five days after developing symptoms for chest scans to show significant respiratory issues caused by the virus, according to the Radiological Society of North America.
Many are then put in intensive care units to aid their breathing.
But New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told a press conference: "The longer you are on the ventilator, the less likelihood you come off the ventilator. That is the blunt truth of this situation."
The virus was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December. There has since been more than 1,521,00 cases around the world.
