Covid-19 and smoking: the elephant in the room
Covid-19 and smoking: the elephant in the room
Kathryn Barnsley, Sukhwinder Singh Sohal
BMJ Blog Tobacco Control, 24.03.2020
The role of smoking in the contraction, transmission and mortality rate of Covid-19 should be given research attention, and countries should allocate resources to health stimulus packages, scientific research, and actions to further reduce smoking rates. New research shows smoking has the potential to upregulate angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE2) receptor, which has been proved to be the receptor for both the SARS-coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and the human respiratory coronavirus NL638.
Liu et al found progression of Covid-19 was more likely to occur in smokers, and smokers were 14 times more likely than nonsmokers to progress to pneumonia. Reporting on Covid-19 hospitalized patients in China, Liu et al say: “This study suggested that the progression group had a significantly higher proportion of patients with a history of smoking than the improvement/stabilization group.”
https://blogs.bmj.com/tc/2020/03/24/covid-19-and-smoking-the-elephant-in-the-room/