USC Basketball: How A COVID-19 Infection Could Have Impacted Bronny James' Heart

An uncomfortable truth about a still-circulating airborne virus.

A variety of problems could have caused impending USC freshman combo guard Bronny James to have a cardiac arrest during a Monday workout on campus, including chest pressure, oversized heart muscles, physical exhaustion, and coronary heart disease.

The possibility exists that this could mark one of the many instances of heart damage following a coronavirus infection.

Strokes, heart problems, respiratory issues, blood clotting and cognitive trouble have all seen a massive uptick in young people following the acute phase of COVID-19 infections.

As a news article by American Heart Association News summarized, recent outside scientific research indicates that several folks impacted by the novel coronavirus could suffer heart damage many months after symptoms of an acute infection have abated. 

"More recently, there is recognition that even some of those COVID-19 patients not hospitalized are experiencing cardiac injury. This raises concerns that there may be individuals who get through the initial infection, but are left with cardiovascular damage and complications," chief of the division of cardiology at UCLA Dr. Gregg Fonarow commented, per the AHAN.

"The late consequences of that could be an increase in heart failure," Fonarow added. "It is much safer if having symptoms that could represent heart attack or stroke, to come into the emergency department than to try to ride it out at home."

A recent JAMA Cardiology study of 100 people folks who had recovered from the coronavirus within 2-3 months of the research being compiled revealed heart abnormalities in 78 recovered patients.

Tesla/SpaceX/Twitter CEO Elon Musk, a noted anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, appeared to suggest that the COVID-19 vaccine, not a COVID-19 infection, could be to blame for James' problems. He was quickly chastised, as people are at a much higher risk of adverse heart impacts following a coronavirus infection than a vaccine shot against an infection.