KPBS Midday Edition

UC San Diego Doctor Weighs In On Role Of Underlying Health Conditions In COVID-19 Deaths

By Maureen Cavanaugh / KPBS Midday Edition Co-Host, Brooke Ruth / Senior Producer, Radio News

Published May 18, 2020 at 1:22 PM PDT

This story was published more than 3 years ago.

This graph shows the number of COVID-19 associated deaths by day in San Diego County.

UC San Diego Doctor Weighs In On Role Of Underlying Conditions In COVID-19 Deaths

The COVID-19 death toll in San Diego County is now over 200 people. Most of the fatalities involved patients with underlying health conditions. This has led some to question whether people who have chronic illnesses and succumb to COVID-19, should actually be counted as COVID-19 victims.

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The COVID-19 death toll in San Diego County is now over 200 people. Most of the fatalities involved patients with underlying health conditions. This has led some to question whether people who have chronic illnesses and succumb to COVID-19, should be counted as COVID-19 victims.

San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond has raised the issue in several recent media interviews.

“Only six were due purely and solely by COVID. What that tells us is that those with these underlying conditions need to have all these protections in place. We need to have all of them, but not everybody,” Desmond said in an interview with KUSI over the weekend.

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RELATED: California Relaxes Some Criteria For Reopening

Dr. Francesca Torriani, the medical director of Infection Prevention and Clinical Epidemiology at UC San Diego Health, joined Midday Edition on Monday. She said that individuals are counted as having died from COVID-19 if it contributed to their death.

She said the underlying conditions that make people more vulnerable to COVID-19 are common conditions, including hypertension or high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.

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Maureen Cavanaugh

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Maureen Cavanaugh has been a familiar voice for KPBS listeners for more than 15 years, serving in a variety of capacities including announcer, host, and producer. As host of KPBS Midday Edition, Maureen has interviewed a wide range of notables, such as comedienne Sandra Bernhardt, actor John Lequizamo, author Chuck Palahniuk, composer Marvin Hamlisch, artist Robert Irwin, and designer Zandra Rhodes. But of all the interviews Maureen has conducted, her most special was with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Before joining KPBS in 1997, she worked as a news anchor for KSDO and KOGO News Radio in San Diego. While working for commercial radio stations in San Diego and in Salt Lake City, Utah, Maureen reported on both hard news and lifestyle features. Maureen has received three "Golden Mike" awards from the Radio and TV News Association of Southern California for economic reporting and breaking news. She has also received a "Best of Show" and “Best Radio Newscast” awards from the San Diego Press Club and the "Flo" Award from Public Radio Program Directors Association for Best Public Radio Announcer in a large market. Maureen is a native of Queens, New York, but after more than 20 years in San Diego she feels she qualifies as a real Southern Californian.

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Brooke Ruth

Brooke Ruth is the senior producer for KPBS Radio News. She previously served as a producer for "KPBS Midday Edition" and a web producer. Before joining KPBS, Brooke was a web editor for four newspapers and a local television station. She began her career in news at the Imperial Valley Press. She has also been part of the web teams at the Napa Valley Register, North County Times, and U-T San Diego. While pursuing her undergraduate degree at UCLA in psychology, she worked on the student newspaper, the Daily Bruin.

See stories by Brooke Ruth