SARS-CoV-2 infection can cause diabetes and it is more likely than those with an acute upper respiratory infection, found a recent study by a team of scientists led by Dr Wolfgang Rathmann, a professor of epidemiology and deputy director of the Institute for Biometrics and Epidemiology, German Diabetes Center at Heinrich Heine University, Germany. The research analysed electronic health records from general and internal medicine practices across Germany and found that new cases of type 2 diabetes were more common in patients who tested positive for COVID-19 than those with an acute upper respiratory infection. This means that the relative risk of developing type 2 diabetes in mild COVID-19 cases was 28 percent higher than in patients with upper respiratory infections, which are also mainly caused by viruses.