Are Obese People at Higher Risk From Coronavirus?
Stefan de Hert, who is a former president of the European Society of Anaesthesiology, highlighted unpublished data from Italy on the types of patients with Covid-19 admitted to intensive care. He said: ‘The mean age of all Covid-19 patients is 70 years, and one of the major risk factors for admission to intensive care is obesity. ‘Although it is mostly more serious in older patients, patients less than 50 years old without underlying conditions seem to constitute one in every five of the Covid-19 ICU patients.
‘Finally, infected women seem to develop less symptoms than men, and also children seem to experience the infection without important clinical problems. ‘These data are quite similar to what we have learned from the experiences of our Chinese colleagues.’ It comes as new data from the UK revealed that almost two thirds of those needing critical care were overweight. A report into the NHS by Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre analysed all admissions to critical care units in the UK up until midnight last Thursday.
Excerpted from Metro
