Coronavirus: ‘Abundantly clear' smoking makes ‘impact of infection worse’.

Coronavirus: ‘Abundantly clear' smoking makes ‘impact of infection worse’.

Smokers are being urged to quit amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Early research suggests the infection is mild in four out of five cases, with a relatively small number of patients developing complications.
The vast majority of deaths are occurring among the elderly and already ill.
This prompted Boris Johnson to tell 1.5 million vulnerable Britons to stay at home for three months on Saturday.
Severe asthmatics, organ-transplant receivers and blood-cancer patients are just a few of those urged to self-isolate entirely.
While smokers are not generally being considered an at-risk group, this is “a very good moment” to quit.

Coronavirus: ‘a very good moment’ to quit smoking.

“It is abundantly clear from the research into previous coronaviruses that smoking makes the impact of a coronavirus worse,” said Matt Hancock, secretary of state for health and social care.
The coronavirus behind the ongoing pandemic is one of seven strains of a virus class that are known to infect humans.
Others include the common cold and severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), which killed 774 people during its 2002 & 2003 outbreak.
“If you are going to give up smoking, this is a very good moment to do it,” said Professor Chris Whitty, chief medical adviser for the UK.
While stop-smoking services may have shut up shop, the NHS and Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) have tips on how to combat the habit.
“This is a worrying time for all of us and people are looking for what they can do to protect themselves and protect others,” said Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Ash.
“For smokers, quitting or temporarily stopping during this outbreak is one of the best things they could do right now.”
In the UK, around 7.2 million adults (14.7%) smoked cigarettes in 2018.
The situation is similar in the US, where 34.2 million (13.7%) people aged 18 or over lit up.

Why could smokers be at greater risk of coronavirus complications?

Smoking damages the lungs, reducing their function.
“Lungs naturally produce mucus, but people who smoke have more and thicker mucus that is hard to clean out of the lungs,” according to Quit.org.
“This mucus clogs the lungs and is prone to becoming infected.
“Smoking also affects the immune system, making it harder to fight infection.”
By suppressing the immune system, it is less able to fight off any pathogen, including viruses.
The coronavirus is an infection of the airways.
In some cases, the virus spreads to the air sacs in the lungs, where gas exchange takes place.
The air sacs then become inflamed and filled with fluid or pus, making it harder to draw in air.
This can cause oxygen levels in the blood to fall dangerously low and carbon dioxide to accumulate.
As well as being more likely to catch infections, the pathogens tend to linger longer and be more serious in smokers.
“Stopping smoking also helps improve heart and lung conditions, wound healing and many other health conditions, which will carry on at the same time as [the coronavirus],” said Dr Kenward.
“Stopping smoking remains the single most effective thing people can do to improve their and their family’s health both now and in the future.”

Видео Coronavirus: ‘Abundantly clear' smoking makes ‘impact of infection worse’. канала Infxpress