Smoking and obesity found to increase risk of severe COVID-19 by 65% to 81%

Researchers from the School of Public Health, LKS Faculty of Medicine of The University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), in collaboration with The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)’s Faculty of Medicine (CU Medicine), confirmed smoking, obesity and lower socioeconomic position (SEP) likely increase the risk of contracting mild to severe COVID-19, using data from large scale genome-wide association studies.