New York Times: Study Finds 1 in 5 People Worldwide at Risk of Severe Covid-19
“…[A]mong the most vulnerable [to novel coronavirus infection] are people with underlying health conditions, such as diabetes and diseases that affect the heart and lungs. According to a new modeling study, roughly 1.7 billion people around the world — 22 percent of the global population — fall into that category. That estimate, published [Monday] in The Lancet Global Health, excluded healthy older individuals without underlying health conditions, a group also known to be at risk because of their age. It also did not take into account risk factors like poverty and obesity, which can influence a person’s susceptibility to disease and access to treatment…” (Wu, 6/15).

Washington Post: Patients with underlying conditions were 12 times as likely to die of covid-19 as otherwise healthy people, CDC finds
“People with underlying medical conditions such as heart disease and diabetes were hospitalized six times as often as otherwise healthy individuals infected with the novel coronavirus during the first four months of the pandemic, and they died 12 times as often, according to a federal health report Monday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data on more than 1.7 million coronavirus cases and 103,700 deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, reported to the agency from state and territorial health departments from Jan. 22 through May 30…” (Sun, 6/15).

Additional coverage of the study and data is available from AP, HealthDay News, and The Hill.