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Why is New Orleans’ coronavirus death rate twice New York’s? Obesity is a factor

New Orleans residents suffer from obesity, diabetes and hypertension at rates higher than the national average, conditions that doctors and public health officials say can make patients more vulnerable to COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.

Some 97% of those killed by COVID-19 in Louisiana had a pre-existing condition, according to the state health department. Diabetes was seen in 40% of the deaths, obesity in 25%, chronic kidney disease in 23% and cardiac problems in 21%.

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Life-or-Death decisions by hospitals, doctors come with threat of lawsuits

Health care providers may prioritize patients without underlying conditions who are likeliest to make a full recovery, but there’s no national standard for triage. The question of withholding or withdrawing ventilators from the sickest patients is so charged that medical experts have encouraged providers to develop their own guidelines. Like the U.S. pandemic response itself, it’s largely a state-by-state and, to some extent, hospital-by-hospital patchwork.

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