(Tom: When the COVID drama first raised its ugly head, from my medical sources I passed on the desirability of increasing your Vitamin C, D, E and zinc to protect yourself. Here is some serious validation of that advice.)
To our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze the levels of vitamin C in patients with SARS-CoV-2-associated ARDS. Our study revealed that vitamin C levels are undetectable in more than 90% of the patients included. The mechanisms of this significant reduction in vitamin C are uncertain. We hypothesized that several mechanisms, such as increased metabolic consumption due to the enhanced inflammatory response, glomerular hyperfiltration, dialysis, decreased gastrointestinal absorption, or decreased recycling of dehydroascorbate to ascorbic acid, may be involved.
Moreover, vitamin C may have implications for treatment of COVID-19-associated ARDS [3]. Indeed, one preclinical study showed that vitamin C increased resistance to infection caused by coronavirus [4]. Moreover, other clinical studies that included surgical patients and patients with pneumonia showed encouraging results in terms of decreased incidence and severity of lung injury and mortality [5].
https://ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13054-020-03249-y?