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We received three different submissions pertaining to the effects of smoking on COVID-19. One study suggests that those who smoke have a reduced likelihood of hospitalization. The comingling of separate data for male and female patients and analysis based on that data seems unusual to me. The second report is not restricted to hospitalizations, but only to those who tested positive for the virus. Their results also suggested a lessened number of self-identified smokers than smoking rates in the general public would suggest. The third and final story submission introduced vaping to the discussion, and comes to the opposite conclusion in suggesting that smoking or vaping may increase the risk of contracting COVID-19.
Confounding these analyses is that all reports of smoking are self-reported. I can well imagine if someone had tried to quit smoking, and had convinced their spouse they had indeed stayed stopped, they would be reluctant to reveal in their spouse's presence that they were a smoker. If anything, though, would that not run counter to the possibility of a protective effect? As with most things pertaining to the virus, it is likely too early to tell for certain, but it does add another dimension to the discussion. Assuming that smoking does have a preventative effect, what could be the cause? Increased residue in the lungs makes it harder for the virus to latch onto the lung's cells and infect? Could it be that chemicals in the smoke serve to impair the virus's ability to survive in the lungs and cause an infection?
Study: Smokers Appear Less Likely to be Hospitalised with COVID-19
Smoking may reduce the likelihood of being hospitalised with coronavirus, claims a study.
Here is the abstract of the study – Smoking, vaping and hospitalization for COVID-19 – by researchers at the University of West Attica in Greece and New York University.
The study presents an analysis of the current smoking prevalence among hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in China, compared to the population smoking prevalence in China (52.1% in males and 2.7% in females). Through a systematic research of the literature (PubMed) we identified 7 studies examining the clinical characteristics of a total of 2352 hospitalized COVID-19 patients that presented data on the smoking status.
The expected number of smokers was calculated using the formula Expected smokers = (males x 0.521) + (females x 0.027). An unusually low prevalence of current smoking was observed among hospitalized COVID-19 patients (8.7%, 95%CI: 7.6-9.9%) compared to the expected prevalence based on smoking prevalence in China (30.3%, 95%CI: 28.4-32.1%; z-statistic: 22.80, P < 0.0001). This preliminary analysis does not support the argument that current smoking is a risk factor for hospitalization for COVID-19, and might even suggest a protective role.
The latter could be linked to the down-regulation of ACE2 expression that has been previously known to be induced by smoking. However, other confounding factors need to be considered and the accuracy of the recorded smoking status needs to be determined before making any firm conclusions. As a result, the generalized advice on quitting smoking as a measure to improve health risk remains valid, but no recommendation can currently be made concerning the effects of smoking on the risk of hospitalization for COVID-19.
No studies recording e-cigarette use status among hospitalized COVID-19 patients were identified. Thus, no recommendation can be made for e-cigarette users.
Does smoking PROTECT against coronavirus?
When world-famous artist David Hockney wrote a letter to the Daily Mail saying he believes smoking could protect people against the coronavirus many scoffed.
Mr Hockney wrote: 'Could it not be that smokers have developed an immune system to this virus? With all these figures coming out, it's beginning to look like that to me.'
Understandably the claim was brushed off as laughable and 'rubbish' by many.
But is it?
A leading infectious disease expert at University College London, Professor Francois Balloux, said there is 'bizarrely strong' evidence it could be true.
And data from multiple Chinese studies shows that COVID-19 hospital patients contained a smaller proportion of smokers than the general population (6.5 per cent compared to 26.6 per cent), suggesting they were less likely to end up in hospital.
Another study, by America's Centers for Disease Control of over 7,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus, found that just 1.3 per cent of them were smokers - against the 14 per cent of all Americans that the CDC says smoke.
The study also found that the smokers stood no greater chance of ending up in hospital or an ICU.
The reasons for this are unclear.
FDA Shifts Its Covid-19 Stance on Vaping, Smoking Impact
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration modified its stance on Covid-19 and vaping, saying it has an unknown effect on the risk of the new coronavirus, while warning that smoking can create worse outcomes.
"E-cigarette use can expose the lungs to toxic chemicals, but whether those exposures increase the risk of Covid-19 is not known," the agency said Wednesday in an emailed response to a question from Bloomberg News.
The agency had said late last month that vapers and smokers with underlying health conditions might be at higher risk from complications.
Its description of cigarettes' risks also differed from its earlier statements. "Cigarette smoking causes heart and lung diseases, suppresses the immune system, and increases the risk of respiratory infections," FDA spokeswoman Alison Hunt said. "People who smoke cigarettes may be at increased risk from Covid-19, and may have worse outcomes from Covid-19."
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2020, @11:22PM (20 children)
We are living through a fake news, fake science, fake statistics pandemic.
No-one has a damn clue what this virus is, how it transmits, how long it incubates, or what is the infection/fatality rate. No-one.
Does smoking make it worse or better. Christ! Is this where we are at now? People fucking navel gazing at smoker's chances of saving some of the 70% of their lives they're already trading in. Is this what we trained all those experts and STEM and medical PhDs for? To give us back Malboro Cowboy lung studies in a time of crisis? This is the best our 'best' minds can occup themselves with right now?
Better anything else I suppose except investigating the chronic shortage of stuff -- badly needed stuff -- that our societies used to make. But of course that would involve very uncomfortable questions about what the hell it is the majority of our population actually does that is useful, especially now that they are quarantined and presumably doing even less of it.
Never in my life have I seen such a total, farcial collapse of responsibility, leadership, and effectiveness as I have seen across nearly the entire gamut of professions since the start of this crisis. Our entire civilization has fallen flat on its wide open mouth, with only the feckless clucking of useless media pundits to mark time while bankers and politicans screw up literally astronomical fallouts. Scientists and experts are proving useless if they are not compromised, or worse the ones who are trying are being shouted down. Impotent remnants of industry struggle to make 10c surgical masks while two generations of our best and brightest continue working from home on phone apps. If this isn't a civilisation ending event, it deserves to be.
The lights are up in smoke all over America; we shall not see the ash trays emptied in our lifetimes.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 16 2020, @11:54PM (12 children)
Our entire civilization has fallen flat on its wide open mouth, with only the feckless clucking of useless media pundits to mark time while bankers and politicans screw up literally astronomical fallouts. ... If this isn't a civilisation ending event, it deserves to be.
This simply isn't true. "Civilization" is the totality of humanity, not a single country, and a bunch of countries have shown themselves to be quite capable of handling this pandemic threat, without their experts proving useless or compromised or shouted down, or having "impotent remnants of industry": Taiwan, South Korea, New Zealand, and more. No, the United States is not on this list, but there's a lot more to "civilization" than the US.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @12:02AM
Yep, I would laugh if it weren't for all the geezers croaking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @01:27AM (9 children)
I was in Berlin when the lockdown went down; the MSM had been covering the pandemic for a while, but nobody seemed to give a shit. People were travelling, visiting places and shopping. Then there was the battle of talking heads, decision makers operating as normal were publicly second guessed by self-declared experts painting doom and gloom. I guess the battlefield was Twitter and Facebook likes.
Once that battle was fought, the government felt it had to do something, even at the cost of decimating the economy. Then the media wanted "uniformity" and started going after countries that had other plans. They got the Netherlands and Britain to abandon their ride-it-out policies. Sweden however refused and ignored the talking heads, the media either ignored them or slammed them with "they'll eventually have to lock down, it's costing more lives!" stories. I think more important to the media was to deny the audience a successful alternate approach they could point to.
So what now? Sweden is at ~400 new cases, ~30 fatalities per day. And elsewhere? The media has been beating the "flatten the curve!" drum, extra capacities are online now but noticeably underutilized. Slowly more critical voices are able to break out. And governments try to shift over to qualifying a return to normalcy: "OK, we'll let high schools open, but we won't allow any fun! In fact, we'll station police next to our cherry trees so that we can arrest anybody looking at the flowers!"
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @01:34AM (8 children)
"So what now? Sweden is at ~400 new cases, ~30 fatalities per day. "
Sweden's latetest figures are 600+ new cases and 130+ death per day. Compare that to Norway's 100 new cases and 2 death per day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @02:12AM (7 children)
Your cite? Here's mine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Sweden [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @02:24AM (6 children)
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ [worldometers.info]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @03:32AM (5 children)
The data on Wikipedia are sourced from the Swedish Ministry of Health. And the data on your "worldometers.info"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @03:43AM (4 children)
Scroll down the page for the sources. Or go to Sweden's public health agency's website.
BTW, you are not a swede or live in Sweden, do you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @04:16AM (3 children)
I did go to the public health agency. Stats in the excel file at https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/smittskydd-beredskap/utbrott/aktuella-utbrott/covid-19/bekraftade-fall-i-sverige/ [folkhalsomyndigheten.se]
show a most recent 3 day average of full day data for total case count: 475 and fatalities: 48. If I read the Swedish correctly.
Why would I be a Swede or live in Sweden?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @05:44AM (2 children)
"Why would I be a Swede or live in Sweden?"
If you live there, or have a family there, maybe you would give a damn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @02:05PM
Why don't you move your family to Germany then if you want to live in prison?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @02:18PM
At least I care enough about Sweden to research and quote the actual statistics published by the health authority, instead of some "worldometer" bullshit.
(Score: 2) by catholocism on Saturday April 18 2020, @03:52AM
These are early days yet, this is going to take a year at least before it passes, already all over the world you are seeing countries begin lifting/talking about lifting restrictions. We are going to be riding waves of deaths for awhile.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @02:45AM (2 children)
I'll smoke to that. Gunna head out now and enjoy a delicious cigarette..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @03:37AM (1 child)
At least it is still something we are permitted to do. Besides drinking.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Saturday April 18 2020, @01:24AM
In WA state the pot stores are deemed essential, but we can't go out to the middle of nowhere and fish. All fishing and hunting is shut down. But we can smoke all the dope we can inhale. *annoyed* (not about the pot, about the fishing).
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Friday April 17 2020, @07:37AM
Whaddya expect, with the various branches of gummit and corporate interests in charge for the last several decades?
We're all watching the circuses, trying to piss on each other at their behest, and missing what the FUCK is REALLY going on.
We (you, me, us) have to stand up and say, "ENOUGH!".
We must acknowledge that we (humanity) are in dire straights. We (humanity) need to make a change in our thinking and perceptions.
A great number of us are sitting around and bitching, worried about "socialism".
Shit, there are a great number of "socialistic" things in the USA; things like fire departments, road building / maintenance, municipal water / sewage systems. and police departments. WTF? Why not Healthcare? Why should OUR (you, me, us) citizens be beholden to a PROFIT driven system? It would benefit us all to just forget the monetary costs, and deal with this situation, and adapt to the future of existence.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Friday April 17 2020, @09:43AM (1 child)
Then you haven't looked before. I'll note also that the number of reported cases has stabilized for the past two weeks globally. That means, despite your bleatings to the contrary, that someone is doing something right in the most affected countries.
And can't you be bothered to learn anything about the present epidemic before you spew your bullshit? I'm tired of hearing the Chicken Littles whining about the sky once again.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 17 2020, @06:45PM
Sigh. I meant that the number of new reported cases has stabilized. We're still seeing massive numbers of new infections. But it's not growing exponentially. That means, despite your bleating, that a lot of people are doing something right.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 17 2020, @01:24PM
That is an inspired rant. I'm sure we wouldn't have to look very hard before finding the studies breathlessly announcing that meat consumption or car-driving or climate change are HUGE multipliers for coronavirus risk, either.
On the bright side, events like these have the potential to shake out the dead weight in society. Coronavirus should be the end of Civilization 1.0, but let's be hopeful and strive for the birth of a better, stronger Civilization 2.0.
Washington DC delenda est.