On Apr. 1, 2021, Oxford University scientists announced they had published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, a study that examined routine patient data collected between January 2020 to April 2020 to generate risk assessments for severe Covid-19 in people with chronic respiratory diseases.

There was no evidence that asthma was associated with an increased absolute risk of death from Covid-19, and the risks appeared similar for all ethnicities. Having chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was associated with a 50% increased risk of hospitalisation and 54% increased risk of death from Covid-19, which was higher in those with white ethnicity.