A team of researchers is urging that people who smoke or used to smoke in the past, should get a COVID-19 Vaccine shot. Thinking why? Well, as per a study published in the Jama Internal Medicine, Smokers or people who used to smoke are at a higher risk of contracting the Coronavirus. Researchers are of the opinion that people who smoke should be added to the priority groups for getting COVID-19 jabs.
Dr Samuel Kim, a thoracic surgeon at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago says, “I could see why people would feel as if that would be unfair but people who are smokers are in general at higher risk for getting sicker when they develop Covid-19.”
Dr Joe Zein, a pulmonologist at the Cleveland Clinic said that it is not surprising that smoking is associated with an increased risk of poor outcomes from COVID. He says, “Smoking induces structural changes in the respiratory tract and compromises people’s ability to mount appropriate immune and inflammatory responses (against infections).”
Not just Coronavirus, people who smoke are susceptible to contract other diseases too including heart diseases, high blood pressure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, which makes hampers immunity.
The study further evaluated data of 7102 patients in the Cleveland Clinic health systems of the patients who tested COVID-19 positive between March 8, 2020, and August 25, 2020. Most patients (84.8%) had no smoking history, 2.4% were current smokers, and 12.8% were former smokers. Patients who were current or former smokers were stratified according to cumulative smoking history: 0 to 10 pack-years, 10 to 30 pack-years, and more than 30 pack-years, as reported by the Cancer Therapy advisor.
Smokers are at a 2.25 times higher risk of hospitalization and at 1.89 times more likely to die more than people who don’t smoke. In fact, a previous report stated that smokers are more likely to contract COVID-19 symptoms.
As a precautionary measure, people who smoke should quit smoking now!