According to an analysis in the United Kingdom by University College London (UCL) and Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), about 1.4 million people have taken steps to quit smoking since the outbreak of coronavirus.
The people of age range 16-29 years are twice as likely to quit than the people over the age of 50 years. Coronavirus affects the people at old age with increased severity and fatal symptoms. According to the study by the United Kingdom government and CDC, the smokers are at an increased risk of experiencing severe symptoms of COVID-19.
Smoking is amongst the leading causes of deaths because of health risks of smoking like cause cancer, lung, and heart diseases. The COVID-19 positive smokers in hospitals have experienced severe and worse outcomes than the non-smokers.
Dr. Ruth Sharrock is an expert of respiratory medicine from National Health Service, UK and she said,
“My message to smokers today is, please, do not wait. Whether you are healthy now or already unwell because of smoking, today is the day to stop. It can transform your life.”
However, the experts believe that the findings could be related to short-term attempts to quit, and the elaborated details on the effect of smoking during the COVID-19 pandemic are missing. On the contrary, John Britton from University of Nottingham mentioned it as a positive aspect,
“A rare piece of good news to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis.”
Healthcare experts suggest that the data is based on a small sample and is a self-report measure, so there is a question on the reliability of the findings.
The data from Office for National Statistics reported last year that 14.7% Britons above 18 years of age smoked- that accounts for almost 7.2 million people.
John Hopkins University statistics reported 294,110 COVID-19 infections and more than 45,000 deaths in the United Kingdom.
