I’ve been looking at Georgia’s ChinCOVID Status Report again. New daily cases have been dropping for a month. So has the Infection Fatality Rate for my age group.
But the fun bit is the comorbidity list. Georgia includes the cumulative percent of cases that are smokers. Depending on where you find ’em, estimates of smokers in Georgia generally run around 18% of the population; I’ve also seen outlying estimates of 13% and 30%. But 18% seems to match my personal observation.
All things being equal, you’d expect that 18% of the ChinCOVID cases would also be around 18%. But after hearing some reports from other countries about smokers being under-represented, I started tracking Georgia’s numbers.
It’s varied somewhat, mostly between 6.5 to 7.8%; which means smokers are seriously under-represented. A mechanism has even been proposed: nicotine binds to the same ACE2 receptors that SARS-CoV-2 goes for. If nicotine is there first, SARS-CoV-2 is SOL.
But when the Xi Omicron variant surge kicked in here, that smoker percentage started changing. From the post title, you know how.
Yeah, the percentage has been dropping. As of 1/28/2022, only 4.85% of the ChinCOVID cases have been smokers. Basically, smokers don ‘t seem to be getting ChinCOVID anymore.
It’s time to victim-shame the non-smokers. If they really wanted to protect themselves and others, the least they could do is fire up a nicotine vape once of twice a day.
Based upon personal experience, I would agree. In the first few years after I quit, I got more colds and had more sniffles than I had in YEARS. My assessment at the time (late 80’s) was that , up until then, no self-respecting germ would try to cross that chemical wasteland to infect me … had a little La Brea tar pits going on in my lungs.
Not to encourage smoking , though. At this point in my life, I regret every cigarette I ever smoked ( COPD / atshma).