Are smokers more likely to develop severe disease with COVID-19?

         Tobacco smoking kills more than eight million people worldwide. This is because the lungs are impaired causing people to have difficulties while breathing.  Since tobacco smoking is viewed to be luxurious there are many ways put to help smokers quit. There is the use of gums and patches. However not many are open to the idea of quitting. (Guo, F. R. 2020).

          Smoking exposes the respiratory system to secondhand smoke thus making them weak to fight against any disease attacking them. Excessive tobacco smoking leads to an increase in the risk of suffering serious symptoms from COVID-19 illness.  According to research done when covid 19 first hit there were serious complications to smokers compared to the non-smokers.   Any kind of smoking affects the respiratory systems be it bang or tobacco smoking. The patients were observed to develop serious compilations that lead to admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) and required mechanical ventilators to aid in breathing and sometimes worse and severe health implications. (Guo, F. R. 2020). 

           Tobacco smoking is harmful to all bodily systems, including the cardiovascular and respiratory systems. These are the systems that COVID-19 attacks and harm.   When it gets them in poor and in less immune it attacks badly.  With any underlying conditions like chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, and any cardiovascular disease the illness is hardly controllable making the patients more vulnerable sometimes leading to death.

            There is more research ongoing trying to understand more on the link and similarities between smoking and covid 19. They are also looking for a way to fight the virus and trying to see how smokers can be helped and prevented from suffering serious symptoms.     

Reference

Guo, F. R. (2020). Active smoking is associated with severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): an update of a meta-analysis. Tobacco induced diseases, 18.