Take your vitamins

A study out of Northwestern University showed some correlation between vitamin D levels and coronavirus. The details, though, are still somewhat hazy (unlike the now much cleaner air).

Here’s the good news: You can get vitamin D by getting a healthy dose of sun.

If you have a severe vitamin D deficiency you are 15.6 percent more likely to have a severe case of COVID-19, if you get infected. It doesn’t necessarily fight the virus, but it seems to help with the resulting inflammatory reaction, called a “cytokine storm.”

“Our finding suggests that vitamin D may reduce COVID-19 severity by suppressing cytokine storm in COVID-19 patients,” researchers wrote.

“Cytokine storm can severely damage lungs and lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome and death in patients,” researcher Ali Daneshkhah said. “This is what seems to kill a majority of COVID-19 patients, not the destruction of the lungs by the virus itself. It is the complications from the misdirected fire from the immune system.”

That tells researchers a little more about how the virus works. Daneshkhah said treatment with vitamin D could cut mortality in half and,