From the Chinese study: "the paper notes that only 1.4% to 12.6% of men with COVID-19 were smokers, while 50.5% of men in China smoke."
From the French study: "Daily smokers accounted for 4.4% to 5.3% of all COVID-19 infections, which compares to 25.4% of the overall French population who smoke. . . . These authors did not mince words in their conclusion which "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."
The few smokers who do contract a symptomatic COVID-19 infection fare worse than non-smokers, but as far as contracting it in the first place is concerned, smoking seems to function as pretty effective vaccine.
Could be, but as the article I linked discussed, nitric oxide is another possible reason for the low incidence of COVID-19 among smokers. Hope they get to the bottom of it, because whatever the mechanism is, it's obviously very effective, and recommending that everybody take up smoking until a vaccine is developed is a non-starter.
Looks like it has a very strong preventive effect. Weird thing is, so does smoking. https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/86144
The few smokers who do contract a symptomatic COVID-19 infection fare worse than non-smokers, but as far as contracting it in the first place is concerned, smoking seems to function as pretty effective vaccine.
According to the French, they are studying nicotine patches because it may be that the nicotine that blocks the the virus from attacking the body.
http://archive.is/E7WwH
Could be, but as the article I linked discussed, nitric oxide is another possible reason for the low incidence of COVID-19 among smokers. Hope they get to the bottom of it, because whatever the mechanism is, it's obviously very effective, and recommending that everybody take up smoking until a vaccine is developed is a non-starter.
Nitric oxide? Super-beets it is!
BRB running my diesel engine for that sweet nitric oxyde!
(/s, just in case)