Opinion: Coronavirus may be increasing risk of stroke

Across the world doctors are reporting COVID-19 patients developing dangerous blood clots. Here Professor David Werring and Associate Professor Arvind Chandratheva (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology) describe similar findings in those patients who went on to have a stroke. Just as Arvind was heading home after a long day as the consultant on call, his phone began to ring. It was a patient with a suspected stroke. Most other days it would be the registrar (junior doctor) first on the scene, but in the midst of the COVID crisis something - a gut instinct - told Arvind to stick around to see this patient. A blue-light ambulance transfer was organised and just minutes later a man - let's call him John - was being pushed out of the ambulance, staring at his mobile phone as if it were an alien object. "I can't use my phone," John said.