Pure guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if fewer smokers went to the hospital for minor cases. Most of the common symptoms for the illness are things smokers regularly deal with like a loss of taste and smell, congestion, coughing, and breathing difficulties. So unless things are pretty bad, being sick might seem better than getting hospitalized and going through withdrawal.<p>I hope whatever wide scale antibody test they do ask if the person smokes as well.
There are oral nicotine products that are widely available. You can get smoking cessation lozenges at drug stores, but there are also nicotine pouches sold alongside cigarettes and snus. Some use tobacco nicotine, but many are derived from nightshade vegetables such as tomatoes. If you were considering adding nicotine into your life, this would probably be the safest choice for the throat and lungs. Receding gums and nicotine addiction are very likely consequences as well as risk to the cardiovascular system; proceed with caution.<p>As a Covid-19 therapy oral nicotine would be easy to scale up and distribute. It doesn't take long to turn around a crop of eggplant or tomatoes, and the processing seems simple enough.
Effective dosing, safety and the political difficulties of advocating for safe and limited use nicotine seem to be something that would make any public health professional's head spin.
> The study in question will be randomized, national and multi-center, carried out double-blind, and should involve teams from Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris, Sorbonne University and Inserm. It is expected to include approximately 1,633 medical and non-medical caregivers, working in a health establishment, non-smokers (or former smokers who have quit smoking for more than 12 months), without a history of infection with COVID-19, and working with patients (with or without the virus).<p>> The researchers will administer nicotine patches to some of the participants for a period of 4 to 5 months, and then carry out a follow-up for 6 to 7 months. Of course, it is still too early to conclude exactly how nicotine interacts with the coronavirus. However, if nicotine is indeed confirmed as a protective factor, NRTs including e-cigarettes could play a pivotal role in controlling this pandemic.<p>Very curious to see how this goes. I would also love to see information as to why nicotine works this way, and if there are any non-nicotine options that have similar effects? Interesting stuff none the less.
Lol, I've been saying this since July. Severe covid is due to organ inflammation from overaggressive immune system response, and nicotine is an immune system suppressant. The one episode of Dr. House where is was actually sarcoidosis (a systemic inflammatory disease), the patient didn't have any symptoms because of his use of chewing tobacco to manage his weight for wrestling.
> The daily smokers rate amongst COVID-19 patients was at 5.3%, whilst amongst the general population, the daily smokers rate was at 25.4%.<p>Not to be macabre, but could it potentially be that more smokers die before reaching the older age range of most COVID hospitalizations?
As someone who has been wearing nicotine patches every day for several years, the thought of the general population buying up my life source is terrifying. I now have a 400 day supply arriving tomorrow.
When “Blowing Smoke Up Your Ass” Was Much More Than Just A Saying
<a href="https://allthatsinteresting.com/blowing-smoke-up-your-ass" rel="nofollow">https://allthatsinteresting.com/blowing-smoke-up-your-ass</a>
> The researchers will administer nicotine patches to some of the participants for a period of 4 to 5 months,<p>Wow. Hooking participants on nicotine for research seems like an extreme measure to research this. I know that nicotine-patches cannot be compared to cigarette-hits in addictiveness. But still, I take it as given that a few participants will start to smoke tobacco after this.<p>Since the effect promises to be really big though, I'll accept the argument that it's worth to study it. I just wonder how we'll deal with a positive result. Will the at-risk population actually be advised to take nicotine preventatively?
Same with meth. Anecdotally, apparently users are resistant to respiratory viruses. The expected covid outbreak on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver never materialized, despite widespread lack of masks and social distancing .<p>I can't imagine anyone is too eager to do that study. If I was covid health care worker, I'd probably be on a low dose of amphetamines right now. Purely as prophylaxis, of course.