Revealed: How Coronavirus Is Deadliest For Patients With An Underlying Health Problem

Scientists have corrected coronavirus statistics to reveal the death rate for infected patients with underlying health problems.

Data show that patients with pre-existing conditions are more likely to have serious illness and death because their immune systems are weaker.

Researchers in China, who studied more than 72,000 patients, found that 10.5 percent of heart disease patients who fell ill with COVID-19 died.

The death rate was 7.3 percent for diabetics and 6.3 percent among people with chronic respiratory diseases, such as asthma.

The World Health Organization recently advised vulnerable people to be extra vigilant and avoid busy areas, or where they may come into contact with sick people.

Nearly 800 cases have been reached in the UK and ten people have died. But yesterday, officials revealed that up to 10,000 patients could already be infected.

Boris Johnson warned that ‘many more will die’ from the UK’s coronavirus, but how many remain to be seen.

The study did not divide the data for each condition into age groups or gender. Therefore, for example, it is not known how it would fare with a 55-year-old man with high blood pressure compared to a 65-year-old woman with diabetes.

The deadly virus that engulfs the entire world can infect anyone, but those with more serious illness and those who eventually die are often older or suffer from some other underlying illness.

People with reduced health are not immediately guaranteed to become seriously ill, they are only at a higher risk.

Doctors and families have also reported deaths in people who were seemingly completely healthy before being infected.

Researchers from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention looked at 72,314 confirmed, suspected, clinically diagnosed and asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 disease across China from February 11.

The results showed that the overall ratio of deaths to cases – the percentage of patients dying – was only 2.3 percent.

But this jumps higher in people with underlying conditions and the elderly, according to the findings in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology.

Those with heart conditions fared worse – one in ten people surveyed died. This was followed by diabetics, who had a 7.3 percent death rate (one in 13.6 people).

Of those with chronic respiratory disease, one in 15.8 people died. Six percent of people with high blood pressure (one in 16.6 people) died.

The group with any cancer had a 5.6 percent death rate.

Although COVID-19 is a respiratory disease that primarily affects the lungs, the body is under enormous pressure as it tries to fight back.

Those who initially have underlying conditions “have less of a” safety net “to meet the requirements,” explains Professor Naveed Sattar, an honorary advisor in cardiovascular and medical sciences.

He told MailOnline: “If you are healthy, your buffer capacity is good. The rest of your body can handle the stress.

“But if you have limitations to begin with, your systems will fail.”

In many patients with COVID-19, the lungs cannot absorb enough oxygen. This has a knock-on effect on other organs.

Professor Sattar of the University of Glasgow explained that trying to pump oxygenated blood through the body, including to the brain, puts a lot of pressure on the heart.

Dr. Hajira Dambha-Miller, a general practitioner and clinical teacher, said that blood can circulate less well in people with high blood pressure because their blood vessels are narrower.

Not only does this slow down the route of oxygen to organs, but it also means that immune cells in the blood cannot reach the virus as quickly as needed.

“If you have diabetes,” she said, “you’re high in sugar and your blood becomes like syrup.

“Physically it is more difficult for the immune system to get to the virus. The virus bugs do a lot of damage before the immune system realizes it’s there.

“If the body kicks in, it won’t work the way it should. The immune cells are damaged because they have been saturated with sugar for years and do not work as it should. ‘

Dr. Damnha-Miller said similar processes have been disrupted in the elderly.

A separate group of virologists who study the coronavirus have also claimed that it is up to 20 times more contagious than its sister SARS. But SARS is more deadly with a 10 percent death rate.

Researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention also found that 80.9 percent of infections are mild.

Less than five percent are critical and require hospital care.