After more than three years, the COVID-19 pandemic has officially ended. During a CNN interview, when summarizing the number of deaths (6,921,614) due to COVID-19, chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta said, “We were not very healthy going into this pandemic.”
As early as 2020, a paper published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases investigated the risk factors associated with hospitalization due to COVID-19 based on data from 5416 adults in the United States who were hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 between March and June 2020. Hospitalization rates were significantly increased for individuals with certain characteristics including: Those with three or more underlying medical conditions (fivefold increased risk)
Severe obesity (fourfold increased risk)
Chronic kidney disease (fourfold increased risk)
Diabetes (threefold increased risk)
Obesity (threefold increased risk)
Hypertension (nearly threefold increased risk)
Asthma (1.4-times increased risk) Many chronic diseases are related to unhealthy lifestyles—our thoughts determine our behaviors and lifestyle choices, which affect our health status….