The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said: “COVID-19 is a new disease and there is limited information regarding risk factors for severe disease. “Based on currently available information and clinical expertise, older adults and people of any age who have serious underlying medical conditions might be at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19.

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“Based on what we know now, those at high-risk for severe illness are people 65 years and older, people who live in a nursing home or long-term care facility.

“People of all ages with underlying medical conditions, particularly if not well controlled including people with chronic lung disease or moderate to severe asthma, people who have a serious heart condition, people who are immunocompromised meaning receiving cancer treatment, smoking, bone marrow or organ transplantation, immune deficiencies, poorly controlled HIV or AIDs and prolonged use of corticosteroids and other immune weakening medications.

Also included are people with diabetes, chronic kidney disease and people with liver disease.” There is another major risk which includes those who are severely obese which includes a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 or higher. The government has updated its list of different categories of people most at risk from COVID-19 and warned those who are obese are at high risk.

Professor Jean-Francois Delfraissy who heads the scientific council which advises the government on COVID-19 said that up to 25 percent of French people are seriously at risk from the virus due to age, pre-existing conditions or obesity.

Professor Delfraissey also said that Americans are particularly at risk of rising levels of obesity in the US, with currently 42.4 percent of the adult population being severely overweight

Live Science said: “COVID19 deaths in the US surpassed 50,000 today, just a little over three months since the first case of the novel coronavirus was first detected here on 20 January.

“At least 870,468 cases have been confirmed in the US. At least 20,892 of those COVID-19 deaths occurred in New York.

“Worldwide, more than 2.74 million cases have been reported and 193,042 related deaths, according to the John Hopkins virus dashboard.”

“This virus is terrible. It can hit young people, in particular obese young people.

“Those who are overweight really need to be careful. That is why we’re worried about our friends in America, where the problem of obesity is well-known and where they will probably have the most problems because of obesity,” Professor Delfraissy told franceinfo radio.

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Obesity is an increasing problem not only in the USA, however. Obesity rates among adults in the UK have almost quadrupled in the last 25 years and now around one in four falls into the obese category.

In fact, over 60 percent of adults are classed as overweight or obese, leaving only 40 percent of women and 33 percent of UK men.

Obesity has a high risk of consequences with conditions that can often be overlooked for a number of years before the realisation hits.

Being severely obese not only puts one at high risk of a COVID-19 death but is also a hazard to overall health and is similar to a person who has smoked their whole life.

A group of Oxford University experts warned that being obese shortens a person’s life by a decade.

Even moderate obesity cuts life expectancy by about three years, says the Clinical Trial Service Unit.

The findings, published in The Lancet, come from data on almost a million people from around the world.

In the UK, a quarter of adults are now considered obese, with a body mass index above 30 putting themselves at major risk of death during these harrowing times. 

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