Is it strange? Yes, it certainly is. The latest published study on the possible effects and consequences of COVID-19 shows something few could have suspected: slow walking exponentially increases the chances of serious illness from coronavirus or even increases the chances of dying from COVID-19. Several UK researchers published in the International Journal Obesity this study which explains that slow walking or shuffling is directly related to severe illness or death from COVID.
In fact, it will not come as a surprise to many, as it was known that obese people were much more likely to die if infected by coronavirus. Now, more specifically, the International Journal Obesity study indicated that slow walkers were more than twice as likely to develop severe COVID-19 and 3.75 times more likely to die from the disease. The study also analyzed data from more than 412,000 middle-aged British citizens.
Obesity, the great handicap in the fight against coronavirus
Age, male sex, obesity, and previous diseases have emerged as risk factors that worsen the prognosis of COVID-19, according to a study carried out in May 2020 in the United Kingdom and published in the British Medical Journal. Thus, according to this research, the risk of death increases from the age of 50 onwards, as does being male, suffering from obesity or having an underlying heart, lung, liver or kidney disease.
Studies in China have reported on risk factors associated with severe COVID-19, but there weren't any studies describing the characteristics and outcomes of patients who have been hospitalized in Europe.
To address this knowledge gap, a team of researchers from the United Kingdom analyzed data from 20,133 coronavirus patients admitted to 208 intensive care hospitals in England, Wales, and Scotland between February 6 and April 19, 2020.
This represents about one-third of all patients admitted to hospitals with COVID-19 in the United Kingdom. The median age of patients in the study was 73 years, and the number of men admitted to hospital (12,068; 60%) was higher than that of women (8,065; 40%).
[This is a translation of the original article "El gesto que seguramente haces cada día y es letal: se puede fallecer por Covid" published in espanadiario.net]