How Every State's Population Ranks for Risk of Severe COVID-19 Cases

There isn't one single reason why these health conditions can lead to more severe illness from COVID-19, Shmerling says, but rather a few likely explanations. Older adults, for example, tend to have less physiologic reserve, or the ability to “bounce back from damage caused by a disease the way it used to,” he explains. Eight out of 10 deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. have been in adults 65 and older, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports.

Then there's the increased demand on the body's organs during the illness. The heart, for example, has to work harder when a person has a fever or is dehydrated, Shmerling notes. This can be especially taxing for someone who has pre-existing organ damage.

West Virginia has the highest share of adults at increased risk from COVID-19 complications; 49.3 percent of the state's population is more likely to get seriously ill if infected. Kentucky is second with 43.6 percent of its adult population at high risk for severe illness. Utah has the smallest share of high-risk adults at 30 percent.

The count of 92.6 million high-risk adults doesn't include people living in nursing homes, KFF Senior Vice President Tricia Neuman points out. This population is also more vulnerable to worse outcomes from a coronavirus infection, according to the CDC. About 1.3 million Americans live in nursing homes; an additional 800,000 live in residential care communities, according to CDC data.

"So in some ways [the data presented in the KFF report] understates the population at risk, because we know that COVID-19 is moving like a wildfire through nursing home facilities. And once one person gets infected, it's hard for others not to get infected,” Neuman says. An added concern, she says, is that “many of these nursing homes and assisted living facilities still don't have sufficient capacity to do testing or have PPE [personal protective equipment] on-site or even know best practices when it comes to where to move patients and how to move patients when they get sick, or to protect the staff and to protect the other residents.”

It's important to note that people with compromised immune systems, including people undergoing treatment for cancer, also face an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19.

Advice for people at high risk

Experts stress that it's critical for everyone to wash their hands often, stay home as much as possible and keep at least 6 feet of distance between themselves and others. But for people at high risk for serious illness, “it's also important to take care of the medical conditions you have,” Shmerling says.

If you have diabetes, “now is the time to be even better about not skipping doses of medication and not going off your diet,” Shmerling suggests. Also: Stay in touch with your doctor by phone or video chat, and make sure you have “an ample supply of your medications.” Finally, don't forget to let friends and family know if you're feeling sick or need food or other supplies, he adds.