Harsh Vardhan said that smokers face a 40-50% higher risk of developing severe disease deaths from COVID-19. He further expressed that use of tobacco in the country has decreased by six percentage points from 34.6% in 2009-10 to 28.6% in 2016-17.Vardhan, who chaired an event to mark the World No Tobacco Day, said, “In India, over 1.3 million deaths are attributable to tobacco use every year amounting to 3500 deaths per day, imposing a lot of avoidable socio-economic burden.