BackgroundThe harms of tobacco use are well-established. Tobacco causes 8 million deaths every year from cardiovascular diseases, lung disorders, cancers, diabetes, and hypertension.1 Smoking tobacco is also a known risk factor for severe disease and death from many respiratory infections.2-4 In the COVID-19 pandemic, questions have been asked about clinical outcomes for smokers, and whether they are equally susceptible to infection, and if nicotine has any biological effect on the SAR-CoV-2 virus (the virus that causes COVID-19).5-7 At the time of writing, one clinical trial to test the effects of nicotine has been announced, but no trial registration record was found as of 12 May 2020.
Read more on who.int