If you are still one of these people that think zinc does not play a role in COVID outcomes I have nothing left to say but: By destroying the ACE2 receptor, SARS2 causes a depletion of zinc since zinc makes up the structure of ACE2 and prevents the recycling of zinc in the cell.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197122...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18880-0
And hey and guess what. They find that people with zinc deficiency have more herpes out breaks!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3283972/
Why? Because the same thing happens with herpes but with NECTIN1 receptor and ADAM10. Low zinc means less ADAM10 activity and more NECTIN1 on the cell and therefor more herepes virus replication.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2906284/
So what might be happening with the low cortisol they speak of in the study?
ACE2 is all over the adrenal gland, and when ACE2 is destroyed the adrenal gland shuts down and cannot release as much cortisol.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2020.5931...
Now, many of you will come back as show me all the studies that reveal that zinc actually reduces cortisol. And I agree, but do you know why? When someone is not zinc deficiency, adding more zinc will trigger ADAM17 to cleave ACE2 off the cell and create Soluble ACE2. Zinc the ACE2 is not on the adrenal gland anymore cortisol will not be released.
https://www.mdpi.com/viruses/viruses-12-00491/article_deploy...
But in a zinc deficient state there is not enough ACE2 to start with and ADAM17 activity is also low. By taking zinc and correcting the deficiency you will increase activity for both ACE2 and ADAM17.
If you know someone or if you have long covid, I highly suggest that you at least get your serum zinc levels tested.