
Smokers quit in record numbers amid Covid fears - elorant
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53403610
======
cutty
Yup. I used to smoke 1-2 packs per week for many years (mostly in social
settings), then went up to 1 pack per day due to general life stress pre-
COVID19. When shelter in place began I freaked out, quit cold turkey, and
immediately started running and lifting. The first few weeks were rough but
I've been totally smoke free for about 4 months now and am in the best shape
of my life!

~~~
cheez
How are you lifting with gyms closed?

~~~
chrsstrm
Here's a nice big collection of programs that either don't require equipment
or use minimal equipment you could improvise -
[https://darebee.com/programs.html](https://darebee.com/programs.html)

No account or login, no ads or affiliate sales, and all programs are PDFs you
can download.

~~~
macintux
Thank you, that's exactly what I needed.

------
whoisjuan
I know this sounds like a joke but it's not. Didn't a study say that smokers
where less likely to catch COVID or get affected by it for whatever reason. I
swear I read that here in HN. Too lazy to Google it.

Edit: I googled it, because someone downvoted it me so I guess they didn't
appreciate me being lazy.

[https://www.healthing.ca/diseases-and-
conditions/coronavirus...](https://www.healthing.ca/diseases-and-
conditions/coronavirus/nicotine-could-stave-off-covid-19-should-i-start-
smoking)

[https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200430/smokers-
hospitalize...](https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200430/smokers-hospitalized-
less-often-for-covid-19)

> "One hypothesis is that nicotine, which has anti-inflammatory properties,
> may interfere with the way that COVID-19 causes an overreaction of the
> immune system."

~~~
cutty
I remember seeing similar articles. While I don't understand the science
behind these findings, my understanding is that smokers are less likely to
catch COVID, but if they do, then their symptoms are significantly more severe
than those of nonsmokers.

~~~
nyolfen
incorrect; smokers are shown to be substantially less susceptible to both
catching covid and developing severe symptoms, a finding that has been
demonstrated independently in (at least) france, china, and the USA:

> Conclusions and relevance: Our cross sectional study in both COVID-19 out-
> and inpatients strongly suggests that daily smokers have a very much lower
> probability of developing symptomatic or severe SARS-CoV-2 infection as
> compared to the general population.

> Very recently, the US Center of Disease Control reported an analysis of
> current smoker rate among US COVID-19 patients which was found to be 1.3%
> for the whole population of COVID-19 patients, 1% for outpatients, 2% for
> patients, not hospitalized in an ICU, and 1% in intensive care unit
> (ICU)-admitted patients

[https://www.qeios.com/read/WPP19W.3](https://www.qeios.com/read/WPP19W.3)

in all of the mentioned countries, only about 1% of ICU cases are smokers.
this has (perhaps unsurprisingly) not been widely reported.

~~~
hwillis
Seems more likely to me they're just lying about being smokers- 60% admit to
being former smokers. Inpatient hospitalizations also almost all suffer from
serious comorbid conditions like hypertension or diabetes, which probably
causes many to smoke less. Less so with the outpatients (<20%) but I would not
be surprised if it was because unhealthy people getting sick, and those
unhealthy people don't smoke because it would be bad for them.

~~~
Supermancho
> Seems more likely to me they're just lying about being smokers

Being a smoker has been a standard part of your medical history for a long
time now for obvious reasons. There's no reason to think there is a
coordinated strategy for lying about smoking in the context of a pandemic
(much less revising patient medical histories, which would be the medical
service industry lying).

50%+ lying about smoking in the face of potential (or actual) respiratory
failure is laughable.

~~~
hwillis
The study isn't talking about history, it's talking about current smokers and
many of the comments on the paper bring up concerns with how specific that is,
and how many could have quit days before going to the hospital.

I don't know where you got 50%+. The outpatient group was 5.3% current smokers
vs expected (adjusted for age and sex) 26.9%. For inpatient it was 4.4% vs
expected 17.9%. The fact that both groups had the same reported rate of
current smokers (within experimental error) but very different expected rates
says to me that you're only getting the people who are honest or simply
incapable of quitting even while sick.

Also, see this concern brought up:

> Finally, and I believe this to be the most significant piece of data
> supporting the null hypothesis, the prevalence of never-smokers in the
> general population is approximately 0.75, if one subtracts the smoking
> incidence rate from 100. In your patient groups, non-smokers are strongly
> under-represented by about a factor of 2 relative to the general population,
> with 31% of outpatient and 32% of inpatient being labeled as never-smokers.
> This suggests to me that any amount of smoking actually puts one at risk for
> contracting COVID-19 as defined by this paper.

~~~
tripletao
I'm not sure I understand the quoted concern? The study they referenced[1]
showed that France was ~37% never smokers average over all ages (nowhere near
75%), and their in- and out-patients were about the same fraction (Table 2)
for male, a little lower for female. The big discrepancy is under-
representation of current smokers, and over-representation of former smokers.
But their patients are old, and I'd expect older people to have more former
smokers, since they've had more time to start and stop and since the general
trend in smoking is down. I don't see that broken down by age in the paper
they linked though. Maybe we'd have to dig in to the raw data, or maybe it's
just not available?

In any case, many other studies of COVID-19 have found similar results, and
studies of different respiratory diseases have not. I'd initially just thought
people were lying too, but at some point the evidence becomes overwhelming--if
the protective behavior were anything but smoking, then people would have
accepted it long ago.

Of course smoking is far deadlier on average than the coronavirus, per my
calculation elsewhere in this thread. No one should start smoking because of
this, but I do see enough evidence e.g. that a nursing home patient (who's at
very high risk of death from coronavirus, and likely to die of something else
before smoking-related diseases could develop) shouldn't quit. Vaping probably
gets any benefit with almost none of the health risk, though that's
speculative.

1\.
[http://beh.santepubliquefrance.fr/beh/2019/15/pdf/2019_15_1....](http://beh.santepubliquefrance.fr/beh/2019/15/pdf/2019_15_1.pdf)

------
harry8
Aside but relevant:

If you want to give up, tried and failed, keep trying. Every time you make a
serious attempt you are more likely to make it stick than the last time you
tried. Pick a day a week out, prepare for it do it. Doesn't stick. Repeat.

It's one of the great myths that you can't because you didn't. You can and
you're better placed to succeed at it. Do it for some people who love you.
Good luck!

~~~
ortuna
I must have tried ~15 or 20 times to quit. I mean really, going at least a
week without smoking. I was ~1 pack a day. It stuck the last time, and it's
been 5 years I think? People said you'd never stop craving it, which was true
for a while. Today, I really don't think about it at all.

~~~
praptak
I have anecdotal evidence against the craving hypothesis. My mom quit after
she broke her leg. When she got back from the hospital, she didn't throw out
the last pack of cigarettes. It was sitting on a shelf in plain sight for like
several months. She didn't go back to smoking.

~~~
dusted
I did this too. Not break my leg, but decided to stop, when I made the
decision, it was internal, I didn't tell anyone, and I didn't clean up
anything, it was a few days before I emptied my ash-tray, and for many weeks
the pack and ashtray was right there right of my mouse-pad as is tradition.
Every time I had the impulse, I could reach down and chose not to smoke. I was
actually afraid of relapse when I finally threw the pack out, because I felt
it was a security net.

My interpretation of why this worked is, that from previously failed attempts
(2 or 3 maybe), I had changed too much, and thrown away the packs and
lighters.. I'd suddenly sit and think "that car.. it really needs refueling
RIGHT. NOW. don't it?" and I'd drive to the gas station and when paying for
gas, I'd say, as is tradition "and a pack of north state and a ligther
please".. Brain finding a million excuses to go out and having to resist at
those weak moments, was hard..

But having the pack always there made it a constant active choice of lower
intensity rather than a more intense recurrent impulse.

------
ashtonkem
I keep saying this: the tertiary effects of this pandemic are going to be
weird. I’ve predicted that this is America’s bidet moment, but I didn’t have
people not smoking on my bingo card!

~~~
pmiller2
I doubt the bidet thing is going to happen. TP is back in stock now.

~~~
annoyingnoob
If you look at extreme Japanese toilets, truth is stranger than fiction. There
is a lot of space between TP and a full robo-toilet. All I know is that I
don't have space for a bidet and a toilet in my house.

~~~
mlyle
A lot of people are buying bidet toilet seats, which retrofit onto existing
toilets.

~~~
ashtonkem
I guess they're technically called "washlets", but in my experience they're
usually called bidets in America.

~~~
shados
I think washlets is just Toto's name for it, and they happen to be the "big
high end brand" for them. It's a bidet seat for everyone else you ask :)

------
kitteh
I quit (10 year smoker) first week of March. Within a week several coworkers
which I was in close proximity to got Covid (pcr confirmed). Dealing with
allergies plus the stress of quitting and being paranoid about chest issues
and other symptoms made it really rough. But nothing like the fear of dying to
get you motivated and cold turkey.

------
toomanybeersies
On the other hand, I've increased the amount I smoke, from less than a pack a
week to rolling over 50 grams (weighed the one I just rolled and there's 0.5 g
of tobacco in it). I can smoke inside at home, which is one of the main
drivers, I'm on smoko 8 hours a day now. I feel like Boris in GoldenEye
bashing away at code while sucking down cancer sticks.

My doctor said that everybody has been one way or the other, either
significantly decreasing or increasing the amount they smoke.

~~~
keymon-o
I find it more funny that many people quit smoking during the quarantine in my
country, because they stayed in their comfy homes without stress. However,
once everything got back to normal, their habits did too.

Of course, I am not laughing at their failure, but how these conclusions about
smoking and quitting always seem very superficial. I don't doubt the same
result globally after things change a bit. It always finds a way back for
many, unfortunately.

------
randiantech
This is my case, although with a little caveat. I used to smoke 1 pack (20
cigars) per day, but right at the same time that I read that COVID-19 was more
dangerous for smokers, my preferred brand (Gold Leaf) got discontinued. Im not
superstitious, but this was kind of "Yeah, this is the moment". Was smoker for
more than 15 years.

------
rpastuszak
That would make sense, today is exactly 4 months since the last time I smoked!

------
humanfromearth
My money is on the social smoking as the main reason for the drop. Social
distancing leads to less smokers.

------
irrational
I wonder what the ultimate lasting results of the pandemic will be?

Less people smoking?

More people working from home?

Masks are commonly worn (will they become an outward marker of a person's
inward beliefs?)

More online schooling?

More home cooking?

More bread from starter baking?

More at home exercising instead of going to a gym?

------
kingkawn
The article discusses the possibility that nicotine may block the coronavirus
cell surface receptors but dismisses it. What I’ve read about this tho
theorized that since the virus seems to preferentially infect endothelial
tissue that longer term smokers with lung and esophageal endothelial dysplasia
would be protected against infection because there was no mechanism for the
virus to enter the lung tissues.

Not saying it’s true, but the mechanism they report and dismiss here is not
what I’d seen as the primary hypothesis about the protectiveness that smokers
were demonstrating in the referenced studies

------
koynoyno
I was heavy weed smoker for 4 years. After (supposedly) getting COVID-19 about
2 months ago, I stopped smoking, and 2 weeks after recovery started to smoke
again.

However, something have changed and I feel like I'm going to die while I'm
high, it's hard to breathe and feel my body isn't as healthy as it was before.
I feel more or less ok while I'm sober, though.

Decided to quit yesterday and today I see this article. "Yeah, this is the
moment".

So I think some people stopped smoking not because they're afraid of COVID,
but because they feel worse now.

------
smoe
For me it was for different reasons. Third day of cuarantine (Colombia, still
ongoing 15 weeks in) I thought this might well be the easiest time to change
habits – for the good or bad – for the rest of my life, so I made a couple of
drastic changes. Extremly stressful work wise in the beginning in the midst of
the lock down chaos, but worked out.

So I'm very curious what long term impact on society we are going to see with
that many people having had that extreme and sudden of a change in their
lifes. Whether the changes come from fear, protest, boredom, opportunism, etc.

------
aksss
EDIT: Jeez you downvoters:

"Dr. Sarah Jackson, a senior research fellow at UCL’s Tobacco and Alcohol
Research Group, cautioned that the __findings relate only to quitting in the
short term__.

“Given that __the rate of long-term success in quitting tends to be low, this
is very unlikely to translate to a million fewer smokers in the UK__, which
would be a large decline in prevalence,” she said.

"Other data sources are not yet showing evidence of a large drop in smoking
prevalence," she said.

Pardon for assuming people actually read more about the study beyond a
headline or two. It is based on self-reporting with a relatively small sample
size. Literally the study is only indicating a record number of people
_trying_ to quit.

Original Comment>

"Smokers _try_ to quit..."

FTFY. I know two people that have quit heroin but still smoke despite many
attempts to stop. I know people that couldn't quit cigs without
antidepressants. All that to underscore that it's a seriously difficult
addiction to overcome.

It mystifies me that people quite a bit younger than me smoke considering
we've known for a long time that not only is it unhealthy, but it's a terribly
money suck, very difficult to stop, cosmetically damaging and borderline
antisocial at this point. Ironically most young people I've asked about this
started smoking for social reasons in a given environment (school, job) and
unfortunately will carry that baggage likely for decades.

~~~
SubiculumCode
I was pack a day smoker for five years in my twenties. I quit cold turkey 14
years ago. It can be done.

~~~
aksss
Yes, never said it can't be done. I'm saying that the success rate is
ridiculously low, our anecdotes aside.

EDIT: BTW, congrats, I don't mean to take anything away from you, doubly so
because you did it cold turkey indicates some serious emotional willpower. But
I think you're the exception. Here's some CDC numbers for you, seems like a
little north of a ten percent success rate:

In 2015, 68.0% of adult smokers (22.7 million) said that they wanted to quit
smoking.

In 2018, 55.1% of adult smokers (21.5 million) said that they had made a quit
attempt in the past year.

In 2018, 7.5% of adult smokers (2.9 million) successfully quit smoking in the
past year

In 2017, 2300 people per day started smoking (839k annually)

[https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/cess...](https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/cessation/smoking-
cessation-fast-facts/index.html)
[https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast...](https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm)

~~~
tomhoward
"7.5% of adult smokers" in a single year is not "ridiculously low".

Extended over the long term, it suggests over 50% of people quit within 10
years, and nearly 80% within 20 years.

This rings true for myself and most people I know who smoked in their 20s;
almost all had quit by their early-mid 30s.

But a motivator also helps - i.e., a real health scare, like a a potentially-
lethal virus that everyone is liable to catch and that disproportionately
harms people with impaired respiratory health.

So we'd hope (indeed, expect) more people to succeed at quitting during this
pandemic. And once they've quit and felt the benefits, many will stay quit for
life.

~~~
aksss
Out of the people who try, about 13% succeed. “Ridiculously low” is a
subjective characterization, sure, but that’s a very low rate of success for
any endeavor. The fact remains, as echoed by the UCL study author, that long
term success rates are very low, the study doesn’t indicate anything more than
people self-reporting that they are trying to quit. Right now, it is purely
wishful thinking to interpret this study as representing a record drop in the
prevalence of smoking in the UK which the headline to this post did.

The rest of your comment sounds as if you’re trying to convince me that it’s
virtuous to attempt cessation. I appreciate that viewpoint and nothing in my
comments (I believe) have suggested otherwise. Indeed, in my personal
worldview anything so difficult to shake loose is worth gaining mastery over
as a matter of principle, negative health effects aside.

------
cosmodisk
In February this year I had a flue with complications,which was followed by a
bacterial infection. It was so bad that every time I was caughing, I thought
my ribcage will explode and my head will pop. I was caughing so much that for
a few days I was going through a box of tissues each night. It took 2 weeks to
pull out of it. Then I thought for myself that next time I may not be that
lucky with my lungs and stopped smoking immediately. I feel so much better
now.

------
Mountain_Skies
It's not addressed in the article but I wonder if it is having a similar
impact on vaping.

~~~
analog31
Being stuck at home without access to peers might force a lot of teenagers to
quit. When they closed the schools, I asked my spouse, now where are teenagers
going to get their stuff?

High schools are a "super spreader event" for chemical addictions.

~~~
saagarjha
Anecdotally, they're still getting it from the same places–you don't have to
do it at school when you can just meet anywhere else.

~~~
throw_m239339
Harder to smoke at home when the parents are watching... and usually, kids
aren't addicted yet. I know I wasn't when I started, I could quit any time,
and I should have back then.

~~~
saagarjha
You can smoke outside, that’s where the kids from my neighborhood do it.

------
gigatexal
Not in Germany. People smoke here like it’s the magic cure for everything. I
feel as though I am living in the ashtray of Europe.

~~~
wirrbel
I think that depends a lot on your social circles and region.

~~~
gigatexal
I live in the city and it’s rather prevalent: outside of shops on the streets,
at restaurants, especially bad at train stations, etc.

We moved from Hamburg and it’s bad there too. Everyone seemingly smoked.

------
stunt
I didn't had daily exercise but I have it now only because I don't waste time
commuting to work. Otherwise I'm concerned about my health as much as I was
before 2020.

I don't smoke and I really don't know what drives smokers.

But it's hard to believe that they are only concerned about their health now
because of COVID-19 after all these years of pushing awareness about how
smoking can damage your health and increase risk of cancer!

I know a few colleagues who could easily quit smoking if there were not
sitting close to a heavy smoker friend. They just couldn't say no every time
someone asked them to go out for smoking. I think lack of smoking socially is
a big driver here.

~~~
emptyfile
Disagree.

I stopped smoking real cigarettes 2 years ago when I started running but I
continued to vape tobacco heating products (I don't think you even have them
in USA, like IQOS).

They are much less toxic and if COVID didn't happen I could've easily
continued smoking them for the rest of my life, since the negative effects are
much much less then real cigarettes.

Only when I quit for COVID health reasons did I finally understand how
addicted I was to nicotine for the last 13 years, since I was a teenager.

> know a few colleagues who could easily quit smoking if there were not
> sitting close to a heavy smoker friend. They just couldn't say no every time
> someone asked them to go out for smoking. I think lack of smoking socially
> is a big driver here.

Yeah, no, nope, no way. Nicotine addiction is the big driver, social smoking
is just how you get hooked.

------
tim333
Glancing at the numbers there may, ironically, be less life years lost through
covid than life years saved through stopping smoking

Covid: Maybe 70k deaths, 11 years lost on average = 770k years

Smoking 1 million, say 5 years saved = 5000k years

(the 5 years is a guess, I think the real figure is nearer 10, the 11 years is
from [https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/05/02/would-
mo...](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/05/02/would-most-
covid-19-victims-have-died-soon-without-the-virus))

------
Accacin
I used to smoke, about 4 years ago gave up almost completely. I never smoke
(or drink) 99% of the time, but when I'm on holiday I always buy a pack of
cigarettes and also I'll generally have a smoke and chat with my brother when
he's over.

Of course it's better if I never smoke, but I don't personally have a problem
with having cigarettes occasionally. I'm lucky in that I can smoke for a week
and then get home from holiday and not be interested in smoking at all.

------
leafboi
I wonder if the opposite is true. If your VO2 max is really high what does it
say about the mortality risk of Covid?

~~~
throwaway43234
Nicotine has also been said to help fight the disease. French doctors have
been given patches. Some study apparently showing smokers are 80% less likely
to develop severe symptoms.

[https://www.jpost.com/health-science/smoking-appears-to-
prot...](https://www.jpost.com/health-science/smoking-appears-to-protect-
against-coronavirus-french-researchers-find-626999)

------
menybuvico
The recent ban on sales of menthol cigarettes might also be a contributing
factor.

Good news no matter what.

------
standardUser
I don't buy it.

I was a very heavy smoker for 20 years. Having discussed the topic with many
people, I firmly believe that nicotine addiction varies dramatically from
person to person. Some people can smoke a few cigarettes a week for years on
end without any major symptoms of addiction. Others, like me, can't even
imagine going more than an hour without a cigarette. Sick? Who cares, I'll
still smoke a pack and a half a day. So ill that every single drag of a
cigarette burns my throat like fire? I'll take pain meds and use chloraseptic
spray, but no way I'm going without my cigarettes. It's not even up for
debate.

When I finally quit 3 years ago, cold turkey after some failed attempts years
prior, it was a living hell. It wasn't until month six in that I finally felt
the irritability and constant mental distractions finally fade. It was brutal.
Longer and more depressing than even the worst case scenarios I had formulated
in my head after heavy research.

These days, you'd have to beat me bloody before I'd concede to consume
nicotine. Within inches of my life. I'd rather face a dozen novel hells before
facing that well-trod hellscape another time.

Quitting smoking for heavy smokers is a big deal. Not a "14% more likely" to
developed generic symptoms big deal, as the article suggest. In fact, I've
read before that smokers are less likely to suffer severely from COVID-19, a
fact that, true or not, is precisely the kind of fact an addict's brain is
wired to cling on to. Even if smokers are "1.8 times more likely to die", do
you have any idea how easy it is for an addict's mind to explain that away?
Addicts do - it's insanely fucking easy!

Point being, I don't think the threat of COVID-19 can fully explain why so
many people quit smoking in the UK. I'm sure it helped push a few people over
the edge, and that's great. But my own intimate knowledge with addiction makes
me wonder what else might be at play.

Perhaps the lockdowns elicited a powerful and much-needed jolt to the
otherwise routine lives most of us live? Perhaps the time all alone, or in
constant contact with loved ones, changed perspectives in a way that everyday
life could not? Maybe some people who smoked only when away from the home,
like many smokers I have known, were forced to more fully confront their
addiction?

I can imagine a thousand reasons why our disrupted lives in 2020 might compel
addicts to take on and succeed at the terrifying task of quitting. But the old
excuse of "it is bad for your health" is very, very low on the list. That's
the reason addicts are most skilled at ignoring! I find the other
possibilities, specifically the wide-scale and unprecedented disruption of
routine, much more plausible.

(NOTE: I wholeheartedly recommend he book 'The Easy Way to Stop Smoking' by
the late Allen Carr. It was a very helpful motivator when I quit smoking.)

~~~
Ekaros
I agree I don't think fear of COVID or anything else has dramatically changed
the fear of health risks.

Much more beliavable explanation for me is massive change in daily habits.
People being more forced being indoors, more limited access to stores, less
social smoking like workplace and bars. And many more.

~~~
keymon-o
Pretty much this. I know plenty of people who successfully stopped during
quarantine (including me), however started the first day everything came back
to normal.

Without drastically changing yourself, most regular smokers will not quit it
for good that easily.

------
handelaar
_Wilfully_ obtuse of the increasingly-shit BBC News to attribute this to CoViD
and completely ignore the fact that a gigantic swathe of cigarette types were
outright banned a month ago

------
controversy
I know how they feel. I have two cigars a year. Got stressed. Wanted a cigar.
Half way through it I thought, “This diseases affects lungs.” Then I put out
the cigar and continued my walk.

~~~
elorant
Cigar smoke isn't meant to be swallowed like in cigarettes. Most people inhale
the cigar keep it in their mouth for a few seconds and then exhale. Either way
good for you that you quit, even if it's just two cigars a year.

~~~
felipemnoa
>>Cigar smoke isn't meant to be swallowed like in cigarettes. Most people
inhale the cigar keep it in their mouth for a few seconds and then exhale.

So I'm not a smoker, but this is the second time I read/hear something like
this. It almost sounds like you are saying that you can keep from inhaling the
smoke into your lungs. I don't really buy that. If you inhale, my intuition
tells me that it is going straight to your lungs no mater what.

Any smokers want to chime in?

~~~
bladegash
It’s kind of difficult to explain without you doing it yourself. The closest I
can think of, is the ability to suck liquid from a straw but hold the liquid
in your mouth instead of inhaling and/or swallowing it, I guess.

------
fab1an
Alas, the data pretty clearly shows that smoking has a surprisingly large
protective effect against infection with Sars-CoV-2 - on the order of how well
the flu vaccine protects against the flu! This understandably has not been
widely reported (it is a nightmare result for public health officials), but
there are now dozens of studies showing the same effect and virtually every
investigated country.

On the other hand, it appears that former smokers are at a slightly higher
risk of developing severe symptoms (though that seems less clear than the
protective effect of active daily smoking)

This means that if you are a somewhat older smoker (i. e. over 30 or so) you
should probably hold off the quitting until a vaccine becomes available.

------
PeterStuer
What happened as I distinctly remember figures from February and March showing
smokers were remarkably underrepresented in covid cases?

~~~
iso1210
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/23/smokers-four-
tim...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/23/smokers-four-times-less-
likely-contract-covid-19-prompting-nicotine/)

> The institute tested almost 700 teachers and pupils of a school in Crépy-en-
> Valois in one of the hardest-hit areas in France, as well as their families.
> The “highly accurate” tests found that only 7.2 per cent of smokers from
> among the adults tested were infected while four times as many non-smokers,
> some 28 per cent, were infected.

> “Thus, current smoking status appears to be a protective factor against the
> infection by SARS-CoV-2.”

------
djsumdog
I've started smoking cigarettes due to the stress of this lockdown. I very
rarely smoked tobacco before.

------
totaldude87
i was a soft core smoker , smoked about 5-6 cigs a day.. But all changed 5
years back. All of a sudden i realized that smoking is not fun anymore, not
sure what has gotten into me , but I luckily stopped smoking that day and my
lungs (as per various researches) should be okish now..

Smoking Kills..

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strifey
I quit smoking a few years ago after getting pneumonia in my 20s. Definitely
even more glad I did now.

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dusted
Tobacco industry bailout incoming?

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S-E-P
Glad they stopped, but it probably wasn’t necessary

Good regardless, I’ve been thinking about quitting

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deeteecee
that's good to hear. a bunch of smokers still smokin straight up in my face in
sf

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PHGamer
didn't covid smokers actually do better in the early studies lol.

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amachefe
An irony, because smokers are said to be more immune.

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Sree_988711
Yea I quited too. Due to unavailability

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glouwbug
A little too late, no? By then the damage is done

~~~
1f60c
“The best time to cease smoking was 20 years ago...”

~~~
dwighttk
second best is today

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remote_phone
Ironically it seems as though smokers are somehow protected from coronavirus.

[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.01.20118877v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.01.20118877v2)

