If you’re an active smoker and have been thinking or trying hard to quit the habit for long, you wouldn’t find a better time. Yes, health experts opine that coronavirus and smoking are indeed related and that each time you puff a cigarette, it puts you at a much higher risk of being infected by COVID-19.
How are Coronavirus and Smoking, Related?
According to the WHO, Coronavirus directly impacts the lungs. Moving down the respiratory tract via the airway in your nose, mouth, or throat, it starts causing symptoms very similar to a flu – dry cough, fever, difficulty in breathing, sore throat, and even dizziness or excessive weakness. If the infection assumes a more serious form, the person may not be able to breathe at all and may even die of respiratory failure.
What happens if you smoke? We’re not talking about occasional or social smoking here but real active smokers who can’t do without a puff every few hours, even minutes! Smoking weakens their lungs and even their entire immune health, making them more susceptible to the virus.
Studies Say Smoking Affects Coronavirus Risk
Besides the WHO claims, several studies conducted recently after the pandemic broke out at a massive scale across the world have also pointed in the same direction. Early data collected from China suggested that the Coronavirus patients failed to show a positive response to the treatment because of their history of smoking.
Even though it was attributed to being one of the reasons responsible for the poor outcome in such patients, it was enough to throw us a hint at where we could be going wrong. Then came a report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare which also outlined smoking as a “leading risk factor for chronic disease and death”. By chronic disease, it can definitely imply COVID-19.
Besides these, a report from the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford states that smoking was one of the main reasons for the poor survival rate of COVID-19 patients in Italy. The country has 24% of the population as active smokers.
How Does Smoking Augment Coronavirus Risk?
Based on the above reports and data collected from several findings, smoking is being looked at as at least one of the major culprits in the Coronavirus spread. Here are some of the possible reasons why –
- Smoking puts one at a higher risk of developing heart diseases. People with pre-existing heart conditions are currently being placed at the highest risk for death rate associated with COVID-19.
- Smoking weakens the immune system gravely. Current reports also suggest that immunosuppressed persons are highly vulnerable to contracting the Coronavirus because smoke emanating from cigarettes is an immunosuppressant.
- The act of smoking involves hand-to-mouth touching. In this case, smokers are more susceptible to contracting the infection because they touch their mouth more often while smoking.
How to Reduce Coronavirus and Smoking Risk?
Quit smoking! Smoking affects Coronavirus patients even more than ex- or non-smokers. What better time than now to call it quits?