Are people with asthma more at risk of COVID-19?

Video transcript

Dr Norman Swan

The question of whether asthma makes you more at risk of COVID-19 disease waxes and wanes. In the early days they thought it was going to be a problem and then when they watched it coming through people with asthma didn’t seem to be getting more severe disease. They got more asthma attacks and more severe disease, and then more recently, there have been a couple of case reports, maybe more than that, saying well, if you’ve got severe asthma, it does make the disease worse overall. So, it’s an open question.

The key message for anybody with asthma, particularly at this time is you’ve got to get it under control. You’ve got to work with your general practitioner so that you are having as few symptoms as possible, even if you’re feeling well. If you’re coughing and wheezing when you get out in the morning, for your morning run or walk, and you’re taking the Ventolin – the blue puffer – too regularly – you’re more than once or twice a day, you should really be on a preventer medication. Get your lung function into as good a shape as you can, so that if you are unfortunate enough to get exposed to the COVID-19 virus, you’ll be able to withstand it better.