India's Chronic Disease Burden Helped Fuel Covid's Brutal Waves

High levels of chronic disease in India, such as diabetes and hypertension, helped stoke the brutal coronavirus waves that hit world’s second-most populous nation during the pandemic, researchers said. The findings from one of the few large-scale studies of Covid-19 in India showed patients from the southern district of Madurai had a higher risk of dying than those in China, Europe, South Korea and the U.S., even though 63% of those tested were asymptomatic. Chronic health conditions in the community may have played a role, according to the report published in The Lancet.