Coronavirus poses greatest risk for diabetes, lung and heart disease patients

People with chronic conditions like diabetes and lung and heart disease are at greater risk of being hospitalized due to the coronavirus – but more than one in five patients who end up in intensive care had no such health problems, according to a report.
Higher percentages of patients with such underlying conditions have been admitted to hospitals, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Preliminary data from 7,162 patients show that 37.6 percent had one or more underlying medical conditions, according to the CDC report.
Difficulty breathing is a symptom that sends many people to the hospital, but the new data show how the underlying conditions increase the chances of serious complications.
Researchers found that 78 percent of people in intensive care had at least one underlying health problem, including diabetes (seen in 32 percent of patients), cardiovascular disease (29 percent) and chronic lung disease (21 percent), according to a Reuters report on the CDC’s findings.
Twelve percent had long-term kidney disease and 9 percent had a compromised immune system.

Among hospitalized patients who were not sick enough to require intensive care, 71 percent had at least one underlying condition, the CDC found.
Meanwhile, among people with the novel coronavirus who did not need to be hospitalized, only 27 percent had one or more long-term medical issues.
But notably, not having chronic conditions is no guarantee against serious illness as 22 percent of COVID-19 patients who landed in intensive care had no underlying health problems.
“It is not yet known whether the severity or level of control of underlying health conditions affects the risk for severe disease associated with COVID-19,” according to the report.
https://nypost.com/2020/04/01/coronavirus-poses-greatest-risk-for-diabetes-lung-and-heart-disease-patients/