COVID-19: Study Says Slow Walkers More Likely To Die From Pandemic

A recent study conducted by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), Leicester Biomedical Research Centre says that those who walk slowly are four times more likely to die from COVID-19.

The Cable reports that the study was designed to explore the links between self-reported walking pace and high mortality rate among persons who have the coronavirus.

The researchers collected data from 412,596 middle-aged persons and found that slow walkers with "normal" weight were 3.75 times more likely to die from the virus than brisk walkers.

Tom Yates, the lead researcher, was quoted by BBC as saying that self-reported walking pace could be used to predict whether a person was at higher risk.

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He said, "We know already that obesity and frailty are key risk factors for COVID-19 outcomes. This is the first study to show that slow walkers have a much higher risk of contracting severe COVID-19 outcomes, irrespective of their weight.

"Ongoing public health and research surveillance studies should consider incorporating simple measures of physical fitness such as self-reported walking pace in addition to BMI as potential risk predictors of COVID-19 outcomes."

However, the researchers noted that self-reported walking pace was subject to possible reporting bias. As a result, "no definitive causal conclusions could be derived from the results."