Most Covid-19 Hospital Admissions Have Underlying Conditions

Corona Covid-19 Virus is scary.  We remain concerned that the hospital admissions and death rate in the United States continues to rise, even though we are seeing some "flattening of the curve" in some areas that put in early stay-at-home measures.

But the great majority of people will not be hospitalized and will recover from this infection.  Let me emphasize that.  

The great majority of people will not require hospitalization and will recover from this infection. We have information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that helps us understand what is happening.  The hospitalization rate is 4.6 per 100,000 population and almost 90% of those hospitalized have some type of underlying condition; hypertension, obesity, chronic lung disease, diabetes or cardiovascular disease. As reported before, patients age 65 and over are most likely to have one or more underlying condition (94.4%) but even younger individuals between ages 18-44 had co-morbidities (85.4%). These findings show why it is important to practice preventive measures (social distancing, hand washing etc) because it protects others who have health conditions.  It is also why the vast majority of people with Covid-19 infection can recover at home.