Covid-19-Smokers are less likely to get sick with covid-19 than nonsmokers |

Ah quarter French adults smoke. So many people were surprised that in late April, only 5% of the 482 covid-19 patients whose researchers came to the Pitiers Salpetriere Hospital in Paris between February 28 and April 9 had daily Reported to be a smoker. The ratios of smokers and nonsmokers in the initial counts of other hospitals in the United States, China, and France varied. However, it was found that all addictive smokers were significantly less among smokers in need of hospital treatment for their illness. The smoker, the author of this report, SARS–CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19. Rarely, they are such consequences found in medicine.

Smokers are almost certainly not protected from early infection SARS–CoV-2. In fact, tobacco can be particularly susceptible to infection as it is first handled and then inflated. This is because infection is often transmitted through the mucous membranes of the mouth. What seems to happen is that infected smokers are less likely to develop symptoms, or if they do, they are more likely to have milder symptoms than nonsmokers. That is, you are more likely to stay home and not likely to appear in hospital statistics.

All of these suggest that something in the cigarette smoke has a protective effect. I think the problem is nicotine. The news of this hypothesis is spreading like a wildfire. The French Ministry of Health has stopped the online sale of this substance on April 24 to stop the intake of nicotine, which is chemically extracted from tobacco by many smokers trying to break the habit. Purchases from pharmacies were limited to one month per person. With the encouragement of the Minister of Health, the organizations behind the Pitié-Salponnetrière study are preparing for the exam, including the Pasteur Institute and Sorbonne University. The plan is to provide nicotine patches to covid-19 patients, front-line workers and the general public. How they are carried is compared to a control group given placebo.

Nicotine is not thought to attack SARS–CoV-2 directly. However, it may play an indirect role involving the cell membrane proteins called Ace2, the virus attaches to the virus to access the cells. Some researchers suspect that nicotine binds to Ace2 is the same. This makes it difficult to co-locate the virus with the virus. Nicotine may also reduce inflammation caused by infections. This is a hypothesis supported by its use for treating inflamed intestines.

A new French study, scheduled to begin three weeks later, may shed light on another possible therapeutic effect of nicotine. Critically ill patients with covid-19 are often victims of a hyperactive immune response called the cytokine storm. Cytokines are a group of signaling molecules. Some people work to collect white blood cells that fight pathogens at the site of infection. When many of these cells arrive at once, they attack the tissues of the body. Jason Scherzer, a molecular biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York who is investigating this issue, believes that nicotine, which interferes with this process, may reduce damage.

Quit smokers are eager that this is not a recommendation for smoking. If a few lucky smokers are thus avoiding the worst effects of covid-19, their actions cannot be said to have been part of a well-thought-out plan. However, it is unrelated to the excuses for pretending to be observations like Pitiers Salpetriere, and thus cannot be traced. If nicotine or any of the other chemicals in cigarette smoke leads to treatment, the rest of mankind may thank the world’s smokers, who happened to make guinea pigs in a giant epidemiological experiment.■

This article appeared in the science and technology section of the print edition under the heading “Unexpected allies”.