ABC | Volume 115, Nº1, July 2020

Letter to the Editor Souza et al. Circulatory System Diseases and COVID-19 Arq Bras Cardiol. 2020; 115(1):146-147 1. Xinhuanet. The Chinese Center for Disease Control detects a large number of new coronaviruses in the seafood market in southern China in Wuhan [Internet]. [place unknown]: Zhao Yanxin. 2020 Jan 27 [Cited 2020May 15]. Availablefrom :http://www.xinhuanet.com/2020-01/27/c_1125504355.htm 2. World Health Organization. (WHO). Strengthening health security by implementing the International Health Regulations (2005) [Internet]. [place unknown]; 2020 [Cited 2020 Apr 15]. Available from: http://www.who.int/ ihr/procedures/pheic/en/ 3. Brasil. Ministério da Saúde. Coronavirus Brasil. Painel de casos de doença pelo coronavírus 2019 (COVID-19) [Internet]. [Acessado em2020May 15]. Disponível em:: https://covid.saude.gov.br/. 4. Abassi Z, Assady S, Khoury EE, Heyman SN. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2: an ally or a Trojan horse? Implications to SARS-CoV-2-related cardiovascular complications. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. [Internet]. 2020 Mar 27 [Cited 2020 May 15];318:H1080–H1083. DOI 10.1152/ ajpheart.00215.2020. Available from: https://journals.physiology.org/doi/ pdf/10.1152/ajpheart.00215.2020 5. Hamming I, CooperME, Haagmans BL, Hooper NM, Korstanje R, Osterhaus ADME, et al. The emerging role of ACE2 in physiology and disease. J Pathol. [Internet]. 2007 Jan 25 [Cited 2020 May 15];212:1-11. DOI 10.1002/ path.2162. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC7167724/# 6. Zheng YY, Ma YT, Zhang JY, Xie X. COVID-19 and the cardiovascular system. NatureRevCardio [Internet].2020Mar05 [Cited2020May15];17:259–60. DOI 10.1038/s41569-020-0360-5. Available from: https://www.nature. com/articles/s41569-020-0360-5 References failure and arterial hypertension, contributing to more rapid progression and worsening of respiratory and cardiovascular condition of individuals with COVID-19. Figure 1 – Comparison between number of days from onset of first symptoms to death due to COVID-19, according to presence or absence of comorbidities. Brazil, 2020. Based on the observed results, the presence of cardiovascular comorbidities accelerates mortality due to COVID-19. Furthermore, future studies need to be performed with the aim of measuring the impact of each cardiovascular disease on risk of mortality. a) Comparison between groups (control group vs. case group) Time from onset of symptoms to death (in days) Median Without comorbidities (control group) With comorbidities (case group) This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 147