hey claire, I am seriously interested in long term deleterious effects covid has left behind on younger and healthier people. If you have any links to respectable sources, I would appreciate getting them.
And my exercise routine goes back 5+ years, and for18 years before that, I was playing 5 rounds of 18 on golf courses. My intent in posting it is simply to encourage many here to adopt an exercise routine. The benefits are beyond my expectations. I very seldom observe any people in Gym over age 70. And those same people I see in stores, barely shuffling along. No one needs to get weak and acquire bad balance resulting in falls due to age. I just mowed my entire lawn, front, both sides and back. And will visit the Gym later at my usual time between 8:45 & 9:00 PM.
This is not from genes, I can assure you. I was a physical wreck at age 55. All my uncles on both sides and dad never made it past 70. I am still here feeling energetic, athletic and needing zero medications at age 81 next month. The only difference is none of them exercised in old age.
I am not claiming exercise will make one covid-proof. But it never hurts to keep lungs in great shape, since it is a respiratory virus and usually establishes itself in your lungs first. Strong lungs will have a better shot at killing the virus than weak lungs. That is just my personal hypothesis and belief.
You're correct that exercise and a good diet are known to be very helpful in preventing or limiting ill health. However, some elderly people can't exercise because they may have a illnesses that seriously impede their ability to do much exercise. Also, it's not a matter of having good or bad genes that have an all-on-none effect on the whole body. Someone can have a genetic proclivity to one disease and not another. There may be genes that may make some people more susceptible to a severe covid response while otherwise healthy and protected from other diseases.
While Covid-19 often affects the lungs, it also may enter the brain directly via the sinuses or not damaging to the lungs but found in the blood and lymphatic system or in the bowels and affect any organ in the body via this route. Healthy lungs can't hurt, but people with asthma seem not to be more vulnerable, and many young people who are super-fit athletes die or can be serious impaired while some frail elderly people with multiple pre-existing conditions survive better.
The immune system and the human body in general are incredibly complex with much that is not understood. People respond to the same medicines differently or may have serious side-effects to some that work well for most people. In the next 50 years, current medical knowledge and treatment will probably be considered primitive. Meanwhile, there have been close to 550,000 deaths in the U.S from this illness and millions with serious on-going complications. Hopefully, much will be learned from the intensive investigations of covid that will help to understand and treat other diseases.
The following are some links to information about children, teens, and young adults who have serious covid illnesses. Included are links to Long-Covid or people who suffer from on-going damage to any number of organs and bodily systems. I've avoided articles that are highly technical, but if interested, I can provide links to some of those.
Children with long covid - ScienceDirect
Younger Americans contracting Covid could face long-lasting impacts
Teen athletes with even mild COVID-19 can develop heart problems | Science News for Students
What are the long-lasting effects of COVID-19? - Harvard Health
Long covid- Damage to multiple organs presents in young, low risk patients | The BMJ
Can Long COVID Be Treated? - The Atlantic
Many Long-COVID Patients Are Struggling With ME:CFS Symptoms
