Covid-19 coronavirus: X-ray shows difference vaccine can make to lung health

A doctor has revealed the startling and potentially life-saving difference the Covid-19 vaccine can make in protecting your lungs against the virus. Photo / KDSK

A doctor has revealed the startling and potentially life-saving difference the Covid-19 vaccine can make in protecting your lungs against the virus.

Images provided by Dr Ghassan Kamel, director of the Medical ICU at SSM Health St Louis University Hospital in Missouri, show just how ravaged lungs can get when they are unprotected from the virus.

Kamel shared images of the lungs of a fully vaccinated person with Covid-19 and someone who has the virus who hadn't received the vaccine.

In the vaccinated patient's X-ray there is a majority black space, this indicates space in the lungs, space that is filled with air when we breath in.

In contrast, the person who hasn't had the jab has a lot of white on their X-ray. This indicates a lack of space.

There is less space for air to be breathed in because of something called lung opacities.

Lung opacities are vague, fuzzy clouds of white in the darkness of the lungs, which usually indicate that the lungs are full of things such as fluid, bacteria, or immune system cells.

It also means the patient is not able to intake as much oxygen as they normally would.

Essentially, in an X-ray opacity refers to something that appears more opaque than the surrounding area, and so, blocks the signal of the radiograph and indicates somewhere where there is an abnormality in the lungs.

Kamel told KDSK News he is seeing more of an influx of younger patients than during winter, and most of those were unvaccinated.

After one dose the Pfizer vaccine is 36 per cent effective against symptomatic illness from the Delta variant, and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is about 30 per cent effective against getting ill, he said.

But two weeks after the second jab, Pfizer gives 88 per cent protection against catching the deadly strain and AstraZeneca gives 67 per cent protection.

And after two doses, the Pfizer vaccine is 96 per cent effective against hospitalisation and the AstraZeneca jab slashes the risk by 92 per cent.

A large number of Covid-19 patients develop a form of respiratory failure called acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), where patients need a ventilator to breathe.

Studies indicate ARDS can diminish people's quality of life even after recovering.

A number of doctors believe Covid-19 patients are likely to have long-term and persistent shortness of breath even when they recover.

It was also reported one healthy woman in her 20s needed a new set of lungs after coronavirus left them "looking like rotten burgers".

The patient was on a ventilator and heart-lung machine for almost two months before her operation last year.

Surgeons at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago said Covid-19 had left her lungs full of holes and almost fused to the chest wall.

New Zealand's Ministry of Health says on its website that serious long-term complications from Covid-19 can include inflammation of the heart muscle, lung function abnormalities, and acute kidney injury.

The Office for National Statistics in the UK reports that 1 in 5 people who have tested positive for Covid-19 experience a range of health symptoms more than five weeks after their initial diagnosis, and 1 in 10 more than 12 weeks after initial diagnosis.