Smokers up to 80% more likely to be admitted to hospital with Covid, study says

Smokers are 60%-80% more likely to be admitted to hospital with COVID-19 and also more likely to die from the disease, data suggests.

A study, which pooled observational and genetic data on smoking and COVID-19 to strengthen the evidence base, contradicts research published at the start of the pandemic suggesting that smoking might help to protect against the virus. This was later retracted after it was discovered that some of the paper’s authors had financial links to the tobacco industry.

Dr Ashley Clift at the University of Oxford and colleagues drew on GP health records, COVID-19 test results, hospital admissions data and death certificates to identify associations between smoking and Covid-19 severity from January to August 2020 in 421,469 participants of the UK Biobank study – all of whom had also previously had their genetic makeup analysed.

Compared with those who had never smoked, current smokers were 80% more likely to be admitted to hospital and significantly more likely to die from Covid-19 if they became infected.

Clift said: “Our results strongly suggest that smoking is related to your risk of getting severe Covid, and just as smoking affects your risk of heart disease, different cancers, and all those other conditions we know smoking is linked to, it appears that it’s the same for Covid. So now might be as good a time as any to quit cigarettes and quit smoking.”

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Source: The Guardian, 28 September 2021