 Hello friends, I am Dr. Monik Mehta. I am the head of Department of Cardiology at Manipal Hospital, Gurgaon. Today I would like to share my thoughts on two recent developments, one of which is about the long-term effects of COVID infection and the second is my thoughts about the role of social media during this present COVID pandemic. So the first topic that I am going to be talking about now is about the long-term effects of COVID on us and on our health and especially from the perspective of heart health. Now this is a big study which has recently been released in the scientific journals and this is I think in February of this year and they studied over a lag and a half individuals who were based in the United States and they followed them up for nearly a year. All of them had had COVID infection, they survived thereafter for 30 days and then all these people were gradually followed up to see how they are doing. Now it was found that in the people who had COVID infection, they had nearly one and a half times the incidents as compared to the normal individuals who did not have COVID infection of having development of heart problems. Especially irregularity of the heart rate or the heartbeat, what we call in medical terminology, we call it as atrial fibrillation. So this was found that incidents of atrial fibrillation was nearly one and a half times more in these people and this group had been followed up for approximately a year thereafter. The second thing also found was that there was increased incidence of what we call as heart failure. So this heart failure is actually doesn't mean that heart is failed but it's a weakness in the heart as a consequence individual would have breathlessness or symptoms like that. So this was the two predominant people presentations or the complaints that people would be having over a year. Now the significance of the take home message out of this is that we know that COVID infection has got some kind of lingering long term effects and anybody who has got underlying heart disease or diabetes or has got low immunity life for example is lungs are weak or has got a high risk profile like has smoking history or has got a significant family history of heart disease. It's always prudent to keep a track on your health for at least a year thereafter and when in doubt contact your family doctor and in case you want to be more sure or there is still a doubt in the mind I would just meet your nearest cardiologist and get your heart checked up. In fact it has also been found that even people who had no symptoms of heart disease prior to this COVID infection afterwards when they were followed up for nearly a year even in them this irregularity of heartbeat called atrial fibrillation and the second entity which is called as heart failure this was found to be of increased incidence and there is a medical terminology called as hazard ratio. So the hazard ratio is that we compare the population who has COVID infection versus the people who don't have the COVID infection and they found that the ratio of the problem was at least one and a half times more as compared to people who did not have COVID infection. Now the science has been working on this and we know that COVID infection causes a lot of issues inside the heart especially what we call as long COVID syndrome. So long COVID syndrome means something issues which linger on after the COVID. A lot of people have shortness of breath or breathlessness thereafter or weakness or fatigue after the COVID infection and this is one of the manifestations of long COVID syndrome. So the mechanism is either there is increased clotting of the blood what we call as hypercoagulable state of the blood inside the body or there is some ongoing inflammation which is affecting the body as a consequence of this COVID infection. So bottom line post COVID if everything is fine do get yourself checked up with your family doctor at least six months to one year down the line to just to ensure that all is well. The second topic that I would like to share my thoughts is the role of social media in our present day COVID pandemic environment. Now social media is an important component of everybody's life. It helps us to stay connected with our family, our friends and also gives us information regarding the developments in the world. Now this social media has also played an important part in the spread of medical information, especially with regard to COVID-19 infection. Unfortunately, there has been an element of misinformation which has also been spread actually ended up as being a tsunami of misinformation regarding COVID-19 in the various social media platforms. And this has led to people getting dissuaded and getting confused and getting wrong information. It is my submission to you all that before you publish anything in the social media, especially with regard to the heart health or medical health and related to COVID infection, do verify your facts. One can take help of your family doctor or your nearest health facility or the government sites. Our government has done an excellent job in providing access of reliable, genuine and appropriate information regarding the measures to be taken regarding COVID infection and especially regarding the heart health. So do check your facts before you forward or one accepts any kind of information regarding COVID infection. This will help us in ensuring that we remain healthy and we do not get misled by propaganda and false information which may be deleterious towards our own health. With that I would like to thank you all for this opportunity of being in touch with you and I would look forward to meeting you all shortly for more interesting topics to be discussed. Thank you.