People with a number of health conditions — including Type 2 diabetes, obesity, chronic kidney disease, and sickle cell disease — are at an increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19, according to the CDC. Dr. Susana Morales, a primary care physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, notes that the trials testing the vaccines have intentionally included large numbers of people with diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and other health conditions. “A lot of the problems that many of my patients have are problems that the volunteers for the vaccine trials also had, and that was done on purpose,” says Dr. Morales, who is also an associate professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.