South Korea Seeing Rise in Patients Who Test Positive for Coronavirus a Second Time; The Coronavirus Is Particularly Unkind to Those Who Are Obese

By Fox News. South Korea says it’s continuing to see a rise in patients who test positive for the coronavirus for a second time after being diagnosed as recovered. However, the risk of transmissions from such cases so far appears to be low.]

Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the country’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Friday at least 163 people have tested positive again after their initial release from hospitals, accounting for more than 2% of the country’s 7,829 recoveries.

She says the patients on average were 13.5 days removed from their release when they tested positive again, although the longest gap was 35 days.

Jeong says none of the patients were in serious condition although 61 of them were exhibiting mild symptoms. Officials are monitoring about 300 people who contacted the patients but have so far detected no transmissions of the virus. (Read more from “South Korea Seeing Rise in Patients Who Test Positive for Coronavirus a Second Time” HERE)

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The Coronavirus Is Particularly Unkind to Those Who Are Obese

By Los Angeles Times. America’s obesity epidemic appears to be making the coronavirus outbreak more dangerous — and potentially more deadly — in the United States, new research suggests. For younger and middle-aged adults in particular, carrying excess weight may significantly boost the likelihood of becoming severely ill with COVID-19.

The evidence for this comes from thousands of COVID-19 patients who sought treatment in emergency departments in New York, and it’s prompting alarm among doctors and other health experts. In the U.S., 42.4% of adults have obesity, which means their body-mass index, or BMI, is 30 or more.

In one of two new studies released this week, COVID-19 patients who were younger than 60 and had a BMI between 30 and 34 were twice as likely as their non-obese peers to be admitted to the hospital for acute care instead of being sent home from the ER. They were also 1.8 times more likely to require critical care in a hospital’s intensive care unit.

More severe obesity posed an even greater risk to COVID-19 patients in this under-60 age group. When these patients had a BMI of 35 or higher, they were 2.2 times more likely than their non-obese peers to need standard hospital care and 3.6 times more likely to end up in the ICU. (Read more from “The Coronavirus Is Particularly Unkind to Those Who Are Obese” HERE)

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