Is asthma protective against COVID-19?

As well as age, co‐morbidities including cardiovascular diseases and hypertension, malignancies and diabetes, and other host‐related factors are adverse prognostic factors for COVID‐19 disease. 1 Asthma is a heterogenous condition, characterized by a type 2 eosinophilic inflammation in more than 50% of those with a formal asthma diagnosis. Despite a prevalence of 4.2%, surprisingly to us, asthma was not listed in co‐morbidities in a Chinese study on 140 hospitalized patients. 2 These findings are consistent with our observation of a low occurrence of asthmatics among admitted COVID‐19 cases (3 out of 275 individuals, one requiring ICU) in Prato (Italy), a city with 200 000 inhabitants of whom at least 10 000 are expected to be asthmatic. Further, none of the 2500 asthmatic patients referring to our Allergy Unit has been hospitalized. To date, there are no published reports of other type 2 conditions associated with severe COVID‐19. Herein, we share some clues supporting the hypothesis that type 2 conditions do not represent a risk factor, despite the most morbidity occurring due to SARS‐CoV‐2 induced lung damage