Obese COVID-19 patients at risk for respiratory failure but not hospital deathA retrospective cohort study of 1,687 COVID-19 patients at two New York City hospitals published yesterday in the Annals of Internal Medicine revealed that 31% were obese, and obese patients were at higher risk of respiratory failure.Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine studied the electronic medical record data of adults hospitalized with the novel coronavirus from Mar 3 to May 15 for outpatient body mass index (BMI) measurements recorded within 3 months after hospitalization.
They defined obesity as a BMI of 30 or higher, and 31.1% of patients fit that category, with 5.4% of all patients being morbidly obese.Most obese patients were younger than those with