Research: Covid-19 And Vaping
American researchers find no increased Covid risk resulting from the use of electronic cigarettes
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by Dave Cross
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Burnett-Hartman, Goldberg Scott, Powers, Clennin, Lyons, Gray, and Feigelson cite the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) saying that smoking tobacco products increases the risk of contracting a severe version of Covid-19.
This lies in accordance with many of the findings we reported in our coverage of the pandemic. Many harm reduction experts also noted the likelihood of death from severe symptoms is increased for smokers who are admitted.
The trouble has been that not as many smokers presented in hospitals as expected and the potential role nicotine played in reducing potential risk of contracting the disease. As a result, many people were curious to know the link vaping played.
The research team collected electronic surveys detailing “self-reports of SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-related risk factors, including electronic cigarette and combustible cigarette smoking history”.
“We also used electronic health records data to assess COVID-19 diagnoses, positive PCR lab tests, hospitalisations, and death.”
Not only did 270,000 people complete the online survey, but they were then sent up to eleven further follow-up surveys making this a very comprehensive piece of work.
“Survey response rate was about 48%, including 126,475 individuals with survey data on e-cigarette and combustible cigarette use who did not have known SARS-CoV-2 infection prior to survey completion. Among survey respondents, 819 currently used e-cigarettes, 3,691 formerly used e-cigarettes, and 121,965 had never used e-cigarettes.
“Those who currently or formerly used e-cigarettes tended to be younger and were more likely to have a history of combustible cigarette or marijuana use.
“During the study follow-up period, there were 3,219 new SARS-CoV-2 infections. After adjustment for demographic, behavioural, and clinical factors, there was no association with SARS-CoV-2 infection and former e-cigarette use or current e-cigarette use.
“Among those with SARS-CoV-2 infection, there was no association with hospitalisation or death within 30 days of infection and former e-cigarette use or current e-cigarette use.”
Excellent news albeit a bit late given the fake news that was spread by public health “experts” during the darkest days of Covid.
References:
- The Association of Electronic Cigarette Use With SARS-CoV-2 Infection and COVID-19 Disease Severity - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9044777/
Photo Credit:
Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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