US smoking rate is 18%, China 25%, not a big difference.
Pollution levels vary significantly, but to simplify it, heavy pollution in a band from Morocco to China, with Japan, Korea nd Italy on the edges. Rest of the world is significantly cleaner, including the US.
In the US, smokers tend to be rural, away from the big cities and away from population centers ruled by nanny-state types.
In China, I suspect that smoking is far more prevalent among the city-dwelling elites, so we’d see a different demographic affected.
Report from Italy on why the Restrictions are Necessary and it will be a long war.
"There were a maximum of two days and then the health system would end up collapsing." Walter Ricciardi, former president of the Higher Institute of Health, ordinary of Hygiene at the Catholic University of Rome, adviser to the Directorate of the European Region of the World Health Organization and adviser to the Minister Roberto Speranza explains why the restrictive measures that "isolate" the whole of Lombardy and 14 provinces of Italy to deal with the coronavirus emergency have been reached.
After reading the two twitter post and this article, I am beginning wonder what trouble do we have coming to the USA. Does Italy have a different strain of the Virus that is more deadly? I do know in the Southeast of the USA there are people who arrive from Italy infected, so we have this strain here in the Southeast.
Link to Ecodibergamo Online paper
Note: I am using a plug in Translator for Microsoft Edge. This allows me to translate any language to English. There is one available for Chrome too.