Researchers identify conditions that most raise risk of COVID death

“This data gives us the knowledge to target our management strategies for those patients, and also stratify our management of patients to really target those patients who have those comorbidities,” he said.

Dr Taylor said the researchers did not find a direct link between obesity and COVID mortality.

“Obesity had a high prevalence in the studies we observed, but it wasn’t associated with mortality in COVID-19 patients,” he said.

“Chronic kidney disease was the most common comorbidity that led to a direct rise in the risk of death.”

Lead author Professor Suresh Mahalingam said it was not clear why kidney disease in particular appeared to be the most deadly condition to have on top of COVID-19.

However, he said it could be…