In an opinion piece for the LaCross Tribune, the education commissioner for New Hampshire poses what some vaccine-focused health officials on the COVID front lines might call a radical idea: Why not work on getting healthy to fight COVID?
“It’s not an anti-vaccination statement to say, vaccinating Americans will not make Americans healthy,” Frank Edelblut begins. He then cites studies showing that COVID patients with a range of comorbidities are more at risk for both getting COVID and having a severe case of it, and even dying.
And, he adds, most of the comorbidities are diseases directly connected with poor lifestyle choices, beginning with obesity, which he says is “the top health condition to death with a 30% higher chance of death, and diabetes with complications with a 26% higher chance of death.”
All of the health choices are ones that support focusing on getting healthy to fight COVID, Edelblut says: “If ever you needed a reason to make a commitment to get healthy, a global pandemic could be just the ticket.”