ANY severe viral infection can cause permanent lung damage, even just the flu:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...?dopt=Abstract


Coronavirus - in young healthy people - doesn’t seem to cause that a great deal more than any other respiratory virus.

It is now starting to become obvious that the whole ‘OMIGAWD, WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH RESPIRATORS!’ thing was overdone.


Too many people were put on too many respirators too early with disastrous results. A respirator is a potentially lethal device and demands specifically trained medical and nursing personnel to manage people effectively. Under NORMAL circumstances a relatively small cadre of physicians In each facility are specIfically credentialed for their use and generally only post op and ICU nurses attend these patients.

Some of what happened was akin to putting a 50 hr private pilot in charge of an A-10 and sending them out to strafe bad guys. Expecting Joe average doc to manage patients optimally on a ventilator was a recipe for disaster. Today they are much more reticent to do early intubation and ventilator use:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/21/...n-ventilators/

 

It's not an issue of spreading the virus or lung damage. Hospitalized patients are often intubation. Long term intubation leads to cognative dysfunction and multiple system and organ damage. Also, recovered patients not intubated are showing signs of cognative damage. Along with unknown residual long term health issues post infection, conservatively better to disqualify.

I'm sure the FAA will have a special issuance medical protocol as well. That would not be a good thing for us.

 

Yeah, I have been thinking this entire time, that if you get/had covid, the FAA might start requiring the Astronaut physical to keep a 1st class cert. That could put thousands of pilots out of work, even with their non-covid conditions.

 

If you’re not sick enough to be hospitalized, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about WRT lung damage.

There’s plenty of people out there who had this with symptoms and were never diagnosed, or had it and were totally asymptomatic, or had it and only had loss of smell/taste.

 

I doubt it seriously. The FAA has long contended that their standard neuropsych eval is entirely adequate for catching Alzheimer’s, stroke residuals, and other cognitive degradation. They’ve never required it post influenza, herpes, or other viral illnesses that can also cause cognitive issues post recovery and even for people with ACTIVE HIV not yet diagnosed as AIDS they only require a standard neurocognitive screen., nothing really all that cosmic.

besides, a lot of their ow center controllers have been hit by this and as soon as they’ve been diagnosed as recovered and no longer shedding virus sent them right back to work.

And serious, you couldn’t pass an astronaut physical..?

 

Yeah, 96%+ of the prison convicts who tested positive were unaware they were even sick. And that’s roughly the age group we are talking about. Clearly, this CAN be a deadly disease. Just as clearly it USUALLY is nothing of the sort.

 

Those on HIV antivirals require full regular cognative testing, along with many other health conditions/medicationssonce reported. Than there is the whole antidepressant fiasco. The neurocognative screen is the "astronaut" physical, and many pilots when forced to do it actually fail. Some require neuro cognative rehabilitation after testing, a waiting period and retesting. It is usually 2 days of testing and yes the test will detect early onset Alzheimer’s and stroke residuals, dementia, and alcohol/substance abuse along with others ailments.

Herpes that causes acute necrotizing encephalitis will certainly land you in special issuance territory with a cog screen.

Medexpess requires hospitalizations and disability insurance received to be reported... than the faa just follows its protocols to issue a regular or special issuance. I'm sure there will be a difference in the protocol from having rona, mild symptoms and requiring admission to the hospital. Plenty of pilots have horror stories with their medicals, I hope the rona doesn't make this career even harder for some.

 

I get concerned anytime you put cognitive and FAA in the same sentence. With Rona we've crossed into another realm medically because no one really knows what it can or can't do. The FAA tends to leans conservative without a lot of hard data one way or another. A lot of health issues are visible for examination. Cognitive issues don't always present as black and white. Remember that conversation on cognitive decline from two lifetimes ago in context with age 65 and above for pilot age limits?

 

Rona is a coronavirus, which is a well known family. It's not anything special or magical, other than that we don't have any natural immunity to it (yet) and it looks to be more contagious than the typical flu. There are other coronaviruses in circulation, some of which cause the symptoms we generically refer to as "the common cold".

No particular reason to think it will have lingering effects in most people (any virus can have a weird course and cause longer-term issues in some people, but most people clear this kind of virus and recover fully).

The FAA is not going to ground people based on a positive COVID test... that might end up shutting down the air transport system even if the economy doesn't.

We all get cog screens anyway... our primary cog screens are annual/semi-annual sim rides and the casual conversation you have with your AME every six months. That later is also your mental health assessment.