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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIs Covid Spread Through Cigarette Smoke?.....
I don't think I've ever heard this addressed when health experts talk about Covid and spread.
When I was giving people an example of how a virus aerosolizes - I always used the example of how smoke fills a space when a person smokes. In my mind it was an easy concept for people to grasp because they can see the smoke fill the area. I would say - imagine when you exhale - the virus which you cannot see - is the smoke.
Usually that example got through to people and they had a better understanding of how a virus is spread through aerosolization. This is how I convinced people - in the early beginnings of the talk of this virus - why it was important to wear a mask.
However, I never once put smoking and virus being exhaled from a person - together.
This morning as I watched the news on the nations new hotspots for the virus - somehow I got to thinking about people that smoked and asked myself the question:
Does the virus somehow link itself to cigarette smoke and when a person has a cigarette - does it aerosolize by combining with the cigarette smoke that people exhale?
Has this been addressed? Has anyone heard any reports of Covid being spread by cigarette smoke?
If you have any info on this - please post here.
MineralMan
(146,189 posts)However, most smokers, including myself, do not smoke around others in any case. Smoking is prohibited indoors in public places, just about everywhere.
I don't think it's really a major factor, frankly.
Jersey Devil
(9,862 posts)You can't smoke with a mask on
global1
(25,166 posts)That wasn't the question I asked in my OP. What I did ask was:
When a person smokes and they blow smoke into the air - does the Covid virus somehow combine with the exhaled smoke and does it aerosolize into the air along with the smoke?
Jersey Devil
(9,862 posts)Lighten up.
LakeArenal
(28,713 posts)OregonBlue
(7,744 posts)captain queeg
(10,035 posts)Anecdotal, not anything rigorous, but doctors there noticed a much lower incidence of infections amongst smokers which was surprising. (Higher percentage of the population there smokes) They postulated that nicontene might somehow deter the disease. It seemed significant enough that actually studied might be made but I havent heard anything
I just checked and it doesnt sound like there is good evidence for nicotine therapy.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-nicotine-therapy-coronavirus-evidence-weak.html
global1
(25,166 posts)does smoking somehow inactivate the virus?
Hugin
(32,773 posts)Tend to social distance whether due to ordinance or convention of not blowing smoke in each other's faces.
The smoking factor was considered significant enough there were reports that French health care workers were being issued nicotine patches. I haven't seen any follow-ups.
Hugin
(32,773 posts)I haven't heard much about that lately. It would seem it's all fallen away to the mask controversy and rush to open-er-up.
CentralMass
(15,265 posts)Lulu KC
(2,547 posts)and found a few things--all seem to be from local television stations and I don't have the patience to watch the videos. But generally, yes. You may find more.
https://www.khou.com/article/news/verify/verify-yes-cigarette-smoke-can-carry-the-coronavirus/285-870472f6-8ac4-4a48-9d03-4073405921b9
2naSalit
(86,037 posts)that has been inside the lungs which makes sense that it could be carried along with exhaled smoke. I don't see why it wouldn't be included in the smoke if the smoker were infected. Just because a likelihood of smokers not getting does not mean that they don't get infected at all. Since testing is so skimpy here, I would consider any possibilities valid.
zonemaster
(230 posts)Not someplace I'd want to venture if I were an up-and-coming virus. There's some toxic stuff in there left by cigarette smoke.
Re: the smoke and virus spread. The size of a cigarette smoke particle and a COVID virus are in roughly the same ballpark. Whatever physical processes are involved in enabling you to be able to smell someone else's exhaled smoke would, to a first order, make it just as easy for you to inhale any of their exhaled COVID virus. I'd think the virus would hang around in the air just like cigarette smoke does. Given that, I would not stand anywhere but upwind of strangers.
roamer65
(36,739 posts)Doesnt matter the exhalation reason.
So, yes...it could spread it.
Think of how smoky a closed room gets with smokers. That gives one a perfect idea of the droplet spread in a closed space.
FakeNoose
(32,328 posts)For example a crowded bar where smoking is allowed, or inside someone's private home. Crowded beaches, casinos maybe, strip joints - you might be onto something.
However most public buildings don't allow smoking. Secondly an already infected person probably wouldn't have much urge to smoke (that's my guess).
captain queeg
(10,035 posts)ProfessorGAC
(64,413 posts)Good statistical modeling requires determining the leverage of all reasonably probable factors have on the results.
Sometimes we don't hear about those factors because the model indicates the leverage is no higher than random chance.
To publish the findings of all the things that don't really matter would make said report unreadable.
Not saying this happened here, but if it was tested, and couldn't be established as a meaningfully causative factor, we'd never read about it.
captain queeg
(10,035 posts)Not sure that always happens. Especially with life style choices; if they are relying on some to self report Im not sure theyd always get good data. People could be embarrassed to tell something or really are fooling their selves about some things.
ProfessorGAC
(64,413 posts)Especially in the case of smoking, I suppose.
But, I know some smokers and they don't pretend they are not. Even to their doctors.
So, if some COVID patients were smokers, out of 3 million cases, we'd probably have a large enough dataset to model with that as a factor.
14% of Americans are smokers. Assume half of that are among the 3 million. We get 210,000 smokers.
If only 10% are honest about being a smoker, we've got 21,000 people in the entire dataset to use as a factor.
All that said, not sure the analysis would extrapolate to smoke being a cause. But, it's not impossible.
Generic Brad
(14,270 posts)I can smell the vape way before the visible vapor comes my way even when we are separate by yards. If asymptomatic, their spread must be huge.
captain queeg
(10,035 posts)Expelling a vapor cloud. Large volume, high velocity. Sure looks like the perfect storm