Top Covid-19 risk factors don’t include asthma

Since the onset of the pandemic, those with asthma have been on high alert. Many health organizations have cautioned that asthmatics are at higher risk for severe illness it they are infected with coronavirus, reports New York Times.

However, when New York state released data on the top 10 chronic health problems suffered by people who died from coronavirus, asthma was not listed. State officials said only about five percent of Covid-19 deaths in New York were of people who were known to also have asthma.

While research is still in the early stages, a recent commentary published in Lancet by a group of European researchers called it “striking” that asthma wasn’t represented in the “comorbidities reported for patients with Covid-19.” A Washington State study of 24 critically ill patients noted that three had asthma.

Dr. Bushra Mina, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said he was not seeing a lot of patients with asthma. The more common risk factors, he added, are “morbid obesity, diabetes and chronic heart disease.”

The top Covid-19 comorbidities listed by New York, in order, are hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, coronary artery disease, dementia and atrial fibrillation, a heart condition. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ranked seventh while renal disease, cancer and congestive heart failure round out the list.