Published online Jan 21, 2022. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i3.275
Peer-review started: November 15, 2021
First decision: November 22, 2021
Revised: December 2, 2021
Accepted: January 11, 2022
Article in press: January 11, 2022
Published online: January 21, 2022
Core Tip: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has enormous health care and economic impact on the entire world - infecting more than 250 million people in 213 countries and territories, causing death of more than 5 million (as of November 1, 2021). We comment here on some outstanding papers on COVID-19 published in World Journal of Gastroenterology and reviewed the important role of endothelium and blood vessels in COVID-19 infection. Endothelial cells and blood vessels are both the targets and a conduit for the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and play a critical role in COVID-19-induced tissue injury and dissemination to various organs. Pre-existing endothelial impaired function could make endothelial cells more sensitive to COVID-19 or at least COVID-19-induced impairment might be synergistic with pre-existing impairment. That could be one contributing factor explaining why older or diabetic patients have more severe responses to infection, since these conditions are already impacted impaired endothelial function.