Dr. Matthew Martinez has studied so many images of a beating heart that he couldn’t possibly count them. Maybe 500,000. Maybe 1 million. As a non-invasive cardiologist, his job revolves around the constant evaluation of pictures of the heart.
He knows what a strong, healthy heart looks like. He knows what a poor, struggling heart looks like. And he knows what a heart looks like after COVID-19’s tentacles have reached the most vital organ in the human body. “This virus,” he says, “seems to have an affinity for causing damage to the heart.”
In a small percentage of infected patients, COVID-19 leaves behind troubling scars in the throbbing muscle within their chests, known as myocarditis.