smoking and coronavirus

On Monday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio addressed the cases popping up in his city, including one of an otherwise healthy 22-year-old man. "Why is a 22-year-old man stable but hospitalized at this point? The one factor we know of is he is a vaper," de Blasio said. “So, we don't know of any preexisting conditions, but we do think the fact that he is a vaper is affecting this situation.”

Can vaping or smoking increase risk of coronavirus? Here’s what health experts say

There are confirmed cases of COVID-19 in 34 counties, according to state data. As of Saturday morning, there are 107 cases in the eight-county greater Houston region.

Dr. Michael Matthay, the associate director of critical care medicine at UCSF, said cigarette smoking or vaping can increase the risk of developing coronavirus. “Based on prior studies with other pulmonary infections, both bacterial and viral, it is highly likely that cigarette smoking and vaping will increase the risk of coronavirus pneumonia and increase its severity, though we don’t know to what extent.”

Matthay said they’ve seen in studies that nicotine inhaled into the lungs of mice can delay the clearance of the influenza virus, indicating that nicotine could also delay the clearance of the novel coronavirus.

This helps explain the initial suspicion that men seemed more susceptible to the disease in the cases in China, since Chinese men are more likely than women to be smokers. A World Health Organization study from 2019 found that 47.6% of Chinese men smoke, compared to only 1.8% of Chinese women