[PA Engineer]

Thanks. I knew this was coming. There was a fog of war originally. The first reports from people with axes to grind were smokers are the susceptible to bad outcomes and infection. I suppose the saying about hammers is true.

When real scientists looked at the data they found an odd paradox. Smokers made up the smallest percentage (<1.5%) of hospitalized patients. It may be part of the paradox of those with greater ACE2 expression in the lungs had the least complications. Further, hand to mouth would seem to be a risk factor for fomites infection.

I discussed this with our research group during a zoom meeting this last week. We joked they will be doing nicotine patches next. We were only joking. I guess that was on us.

[Fury]

Re: 5 - Hmmm.

From https://covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov

This caught my eye:

Considerations for Certain Concomitant Medications in Patients with COVID-19 Summary Recommendations

Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme (ACE) Inhibitors and Angiotensin Receptor Blockers (ARBs):

Persons with COVID-19 who are prescribed ACE inhibitors or ARBs for cardiovascular disease (or other indications) should continue these medications (AIII).

The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) recommends against the use of ACE inhibitors or ARBs for the treatment of COVID-19 (emphasis added) outside of the setting of a clinical trial (AIII).

What exactly are they saying? Are they saying that ACE inhibitors or ARBs are being used by some doctors for treatment of COVID-19? Wasn't the thought that ACE inhibitors could be a potential liability if infected with COVID-19?

[Calvin Locke]

While nicotine’s a decent poison, I was perhaps thinking that it’s all the other crap in a smoker’s lungs that make it inhospitable for the virus to survive for infection.

[Verbosus]

I have heard 2 times from interviews with reasearches and read one other time that cigarette smokers consistently show a lower hospitalizasion rate, and a higher recovery rate.

They all felt it was due to some anomality, but it perhaps should be looked in to in the future because it made no since to them at all.
But the facts were present that nicotine users did have better recovery rates and less likely to have a Hogg impact from the virus.

The still thought it was nothing more than a “consistent anomality”.

[wiley]

I’ve seen a study that indicates that nicotine suppresses inflammatory cytokines. It mentioned that because of its addictive nature they didn’t recommend it for clinical use.