COVID-19 May Not Be as Threatening to People with Asthma as We Thought

People who have asthma are often listed among patients at higher risk for severe disease and outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, a new article on MedPage Today calls that presumption into question. Quoting infectious disease experts and drawing on data from the still-small pool of research that’s been done on COVID-19, the piece notes that 5% of people in China have been diagnosed with asthma—but asthma was found in less than 1% of patients hospitalized for COVID-19; this speaks not only to the concept that people with asthma may not be at increased risk for the virus, but that they may not be more predisposed to hospitalization if they do become infected. Further, the article cites data from the New York State Department of Health revealing that asthma is not even among the 10 most common comorbidities among COVID-19 patients—while up to 10% of New York residents have asthma. This is not to suggest that asthma is protective. And the value of sharing this information is not to discourage people with asthma from taking all the preventive measures advocated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but to alert clinicians to the fact that A) we should challenge our presumptions regularly and B) it may be advisable to lean more heavily on patients with other comorbid conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and conditions that leave them immunocompromised.