Day 198: Hair Loss

As threatened yesterday, he Prime Minister of New Zealand has postponed elections by one month. Unlike most government's panicked reactions to coronavirus, this is within her legal rights, though at this point it's basically pulling a number out of a hat.

Just when you thought coronavirus couldn't get any weirder than "COVID toes", a new symptom makes the news: hair loss:

Favini said coronavirus patients may suffer from telogen effluvium, a condition that leads hair to stop growing and eventually fall out roughly three months after a traumatic event. Whereas the average healthy person loses about 100 strands of hair per day, people with telogen effluvium may lose about three times that.

"When the body is in a really stressful situation, it basically diverts energy from growing hair to more essential things," Favini said. The stress can be either physical or mental, he added – a high fever or depression would both qualify.

The condition usually lasts for about six months, with patients losing up to half the hair on their scalp.

The news article goes on, of course, to speculate that COVID-19 may be entirely unlike any other disease known to man and who knows how long it will last? (PlagueBlog predicts about six months.)

Massachusetts' cases were up a third of a percentage point today.