A major international study has found the first direct evidence of exercise having direct benefits in relation to COVID-19, with the research revealing that physically active people were two and a half times less likely to die from the disease caused by the novel coronavirus than those who were consistently inactive. The investigation of nearly 50,000 COVID-19 patients, who were inactive during the two years prior to the pandemic, found they were more than twice as likely to be admitted to a hospital than patients who had spent more than 150 minutes of weekly exercise. They were also 73 percent more likely to require intensive care. Professor Jim Sallis, a Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University’s Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, and one of the study’s authors recommended clinicians encourage their patients to be physically active, especially those who have other risk factors. “These findings should be a wake-up …