When it comes to Covid, our lungs are ‘ground zero’. They are one of the primary routes the virus uses to get into the body. But early on in the pandemic, chest X-ray scans revealed something else: where the images should be black, indicating healthy air-filled tissue, in many cases there was a white mist described as resembling ‘ground glass’.
It’s the telltale sign of pneumonitis – inflamed lungs as a result of the body’s immune response to the virus. But in the case of Covid, the damage often seems to be far worse and more extensive than with similar illnesses such as flu.