To wonder why they haven’t said anything about smokers?

[NailsNeedDoing]

It occurred to me, while I was having a cigarette, that I haven’t heard anything about how smokers are affected by covid, which seems a bit odd considering covid is a respiratory illness and we know how bad smoking is for lungs.

We’ve heard about all the other extra risk factors like obesity, age, ethnicity, living in an area of deprivation but unless I’ve missed it, I haven’t heard anything about smokers. Are they just not collecting that data or something?

I also think this is very odd. surely it's one of the risk factors

I think it's simply because that's given that smokers might be affected worse

A study showed that weirdly smokers seem less at risk of complications and they wondered if it was due to nicotine

Google something like 'Smokers not getting covid' - plenty of results. There seems to be a connection but naturally they'll not be wanting to shout about it!

www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200430/smokers-hospitalized-less-often-for-covid-19

Yes what @CrotchBurn said - initially the studies showed that smokers were less at risk.

However, research published last week was reported on and it has confirmed that smoking is a risk factor for more serious illness.

More recent research:

www.diabetes.co.uk/news/2021/jan/smoking-increases-risk-of-hospital-admission-among-those-with-covid-19.html

Anecdotally smoking is a protective factor, but no one is going to publicise that

Here's something more recent from last month:
"A study conducted by UK researchers has found that patients hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were less likely to be current smokers than patients who had been admitted with other types of respiratory viral infections last year (2019).

The researchers also found that smoking prevalence among the patients hospitalized with COVID-19 was significantly lower than would be expected in the local general population."

www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20201201/Does-smoking-increase-risk-of-COVID-19-hospitalization.aspx

This is from October. It was just at the beginning when they talked about the smoking being protective.
www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/behind-the-headlines/coronavirus/coronavirus-and-smoking

I think the BMJ stated that smokers are underrepresented when it comes to getting Covid.

This is interesting, thank you!

If you smoke your hardly bothered about Covid. If you were you'd be trying to give up or already have.

Maybe because smokers are already social pariahs, used to having to keep their distance and spend all their time outside!

@JanuaryBlus

If you smoke your hardly bothered about Covid. If you were you'd be trying to give up or already have.

Does that go for all addicts, or just smokers?

By that reckoning anyone who was overweight prior to last March, should be nice and slim by now or at least well on the way.

Be careful OP, in Mumsnetland smoking is right up there with shitting in your MILs handbag, injecting children with drugs and hurting baby animals!

@JanuaryBlus

If you smoke your hardly bothered about Covid. If you were you'd be trying to give up or already have.

There’s always one!

Yeah, you might as well die OP, you obviously don’t care if you do or not because you smoke.

I remember reading initially that smokers seemed to be less affected in terms of catching it (not severity). I’m not sure if this ceased to be the case or the benefit disappeared but they certainly stopped reporting it.

@CrotchBurn

Be careful OP, in Mumsnetland smoking is right up there with shitting in your MILs handbag, injecting children with drugs and hurting baby animals!

😂 Yeah I know, I was feeling brave!

I've seen reports that smokers are less likely to contract Covid but, if they do, they are more likely to have it severely.

This is the 2nd smoking thread of the day.

There’s been plenty of reports on this.

Smokers are less likely to catch it, But if they do can be worse impacted

They think it’s something to do with the way th virus attaches, the nicotine or whatever is providing a coating it can’t cling to.

At one point they were trialling nicotine patches to see if it helped people.

However clearly nicotine helping as a preventative measure is not something most governments would wish to publish because it causes other health problems. It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul.

@CrotchBurn

Be careful OP, in Mumsnetland smoking is right up there with shitting in your MILs handbag, injecting children with drugs and hurting baby animals!

😂😂

Huge overlap between smoking, obesity, deprivation etc anyway. Probably a bit difficult to pull apart the confounders. I suspect obesity was simply more obvious from a statistical viewpoint.

Anyway, smoking is bad for you and you should probably stop.

@vodkaredbullgirl
So what?