Does Vaping or Smoking Make You More Likely to Catch the Coronavirus?

According to KOMOnews in Seattle, as the coronavirus continues to spread, calculating the risk of infection is common knowledge everyone should have. In this regard, American experts warn that smoking or using e-cigarettes may increase the risk of infection.
 
On Monday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio discussed the sudden increase in coronavirus cases in his city, including a healthy 22-year-old man. Blasio stated: "Why is the 22-year-old man stable now but hospitalized? One factor we know is that he is an e-cigarette user. Therefore, we do not know of any pre-existing conditions, but we do believe that the fact he is an e-cigarette user is impacting this situation."

Dr. Michael Matthay, the deputy director of critical care medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, stated that e-cigarettes or smoking may increase the risk of contracting the coronavirus. "Based on previous studies on other lung infections caused by bacteria and viruses, e-cigarettes and smoking are likely to increase the risk of coronavirus pneumonia and its severity, although we do not know to what extent."

Matthay mentioned that they have seen in studies that inhaling nicotine into the lungs of mice can delay the clearance of the influenza virus, suggesting that nicotine may also delay the clearance of the novel coronavirus.

This helps explain the initial suspicion: in China, men seem to be more susceptible to this disease because men in China smoke more than women. A study by the World Health Organization starting in 2019 found that the smoking rate among men in China is 47.6%, while only 1.8% among women.

The Tobacco Control Research and Education Center at the University of California, San Francisco, confirmed this data in a recent article, stating: "Among Chinese patients diagnosed with COVID-19, those with a history of smoking are 14 times more likely to develop severe illness (including death) than those without a smoking history. This is the highest risk factor among the surveyed individuals."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that older adults and individuals with cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, and chronic lung disease are most susceptible to contracting the coronavirus.