Britons are ditching smoking in their thousands during the coronavirus lockdown, according to a recent YouGov survey.
A total of 1,004 people in Britain were quizzed and two per cent of smokers say they had given up the habit.
Scaled up to match the entire UK population, YouGov says this means up to 300,000 Britons may have quit due to concerns the habit puts them at increased risk of suffering severe COVID-19 symptoms.
It has long been known that smokers have worse overall lung-health than non-smokers as the tar, nicotine and other substances in tobacco clog up the airways and cause significant long-lasting damage to the organs.
However, scientists are divided on whether smoking is a benefit or a burden when facing coronavirus.
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Britons are ditching smoking in their thousands during the coronavirus lockdown, according to a recent YouGov survey. A total of 1,004 people in Britain were quizzed and two per cent of smokers say they had given up the habit (stock image)
University of College London reviewed 28 studies and found smoking rates were lower than expected among COVID-19 patients. The graph shows the smoking rate of each country against the percentage of smokers among COVID-19 patients. The lowest figure has been chosen for each country to show the stark comparison discovered by some studies
Elderly smoker quits 30-a-day habit and feels more confident she could ‘face the virus’ now
An elderly woman has successfully given up cigarettes after smoking up to 30 a day for more than 60 years.
Tag Doogan, who quit smoking in November to be healthier for her grandchildren, said she feels she has given herself the best chance if she ends up ‘facing the virus’.
Ms Doogan, who has two young grandsons, Eddie, four, and Louis, six, said: ‘Smoking is bad for the grandchildren, and I wanted to be a better, kinder person.
‘I was miserable because I was wheezy and couldn’t walk a few steps without getting out of breath.
‘I wanted to go dancing, I wanted to go exercise, I want to have a good laugh and have a good social life.’
Ms Doogan, a retired pattern cutter, said her breathing problems peaked two years ago when she was left gasping for air after a gym session in an air-conditioned room.
‘I was in hospital when I went to the gym a couple of years ago, because of the air conditioning – I could hardly breathe,’ she said.
‘The doctor said to me ‘you’re half dead’ and I was taken to an intensive care ward. Honestly it just didn’t seem real.’
Ms Doogan, who is originally from Cumbria but has lived in west London for six decades, said the day she quit was precisely three months before her 79th birthday.
‘I wanted to be 78 and giving up and not 79 and giving up, that was important,’ she said.
‘I thought once I might just buy a great big cigar – a Havana thing – and have a couple of puffs on occasions. But I’m never going to buy another packet of fags again.’
Ms Doogan said her lung capacity has improved by 130% since quitting, her blood pressure has dropped to a healthy level, and she has experienced ‘amazing’ mental health benefits.
‘I can face the virus because I’ve given up smoking – it’s got all the positives,’ she said.
‘I would feel so guilty if I was still smoking, and the fact that I might die because of not breathing and being very uncomfortable.’
Tag Doogan (pictured) quit smoking in November to be healthier for her grandchildren
The survey of Britons, published today, found that up to 300,000 Britons – two per cent of smokers – have successfully quit since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Moreover, more than half a million (eight per cent) have tried to curb the addiction, 2.4 million (36 per cent) have cut down, and 27 per cent said they were now more likely to quit.
A quarter of ex-smokers said they were now less likely to resume smoking, although four per cent say the stress of the pandemic had made them more likely to relapse.
YouGov’s UK arm of the international Covid-19 tracker worked with anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) to release the results.
The news comes after a spate of studies found that smokers make up only a tiny fraction of hospitalised COVID-19 patients.
A review of 28 scientific studies by University College London academics found the proportions of smokers among hospital patients were ‘lower than expected’.
Twenty-two of the studies were conducted in China, three in the US, one in South Korea, one in France and one was an international study using mostly UK data.
One of the studies showed that in the UK the proportion of smokers among COVID-19 patients was just five per cent, a third of the national rate of 14.4 per cent.
Data from multiple Chinese studies also found that COVID-19 hospital patients contained a smaller proportion of smokers than the general population (6.5 per cent compared to 26.6 per cent), suggesting they were less likely to end up in hospital.
Another study, by America’s Centers for Disease Control of over 7,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus, found that just 1.3 per cent of them were smokers – against the 14 per cent of all Americans that the CDC says smoke.
The study also found that the smokers stood no greater chance of ending up in hospital or an ICU.
Scientists cannot explain why smokers might have a lower risk of becoming hospitalised with COVID-19 and call the correlation ‘bizarre’.
One public health professor said there was ‘something weird going on with smoking and coronavirus’ and experts are struggling to explain the connection.
Researchers admit the link between smoking and coronavirus patients may be skewed due to incomplete knowledge of the person’s lifestyle, for example, hospitals are probably too busy to record a patients’ smoking status properly.
Whatever the reason, health officials are struggling to knock down mounting evidence suggesting an apparent protective effect given by cigarettes, which one expert admitted was ‘weird’.
As a result of this, French researchers are set to trial nicotine patches as a treatment for some coronavirus patients in Parisian hospitals.
This last-ditch attempt to improve a patent’s prognosis is low-cost, offers no significant downside and, if it works, could be an easy way of improving a person’s treatment, according to scientists.
Last month, David Hockney, a world-famous artist now aged 82, penned a letter to the Daily Mail on this topic sparking a global conversation.
Mr Hockney wrote: ‘Could it not be that smokers have developed an immune system to this virus? With all these figures coming out, it’s beginning to look like that to me.’
Professor Francois Balloux, an infectious disease expert at University College London, said there is ‘bizarrely strong’ evidence supporting Mr Hockney’s hunch.
The survey of Britons found that while more than 300,000 Britons have successfully quit, more than half a million have tried to curb the addiction and 2.4 million have cut down (stock photo)
An elderly woman has successfully given up cigarettes after smoking up to 30 a day for more than 60 years. Tag Doogan, 78, (pictured) quit smoking in November to be healthier for her grandchildren
However, the evidence also shows smokers who catch COVID-19 and are hospitalised are then more likely to develop the most severe symptoms and require ventilation.
COVID-19 ravages the lungs, causing critical damage to the organ’s sensitive and air sacs.
It can cause them to become infected and inflamed, potentially leading to pneumonia and, in the most severe cases, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS.
Dr Panagis Galiatsatos, an expert on lung disease at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, says it can take three months to a year for a person to regain full lung function after a severe bout of COVID-19.
Governments in the UK and US continue to urge people to stop smoking to protect themselves from the virus, as has been the official guidance for several weeks.
The results of the YouGov survey and the decision of thousands to stop smoking during a worldwide pandemic of a killer virus which targets the lungs has been, unsurprisingly, welcomed by health and anti-smoking bodies.
In a statement issued by the #QuitforCOVID Twitter campaign, Britain’s foremost smoking experts were relieved to see the public recognising the danger smoking poses to public health.
ASH chairman Nick Hopkinson, a respiratory specialist at Imperial College London, said: ‘Smoking harms the immune system and our ability to fight off infections.
‘Evidence is growing that smoking is associated with worse outcomes in those admitted to hospital with COVID-19.
‘Quitting smoking also rapidly reduces people’s risk of other health problems such as heart attacks and strokes – those are bad whenever they happen, so preventing them is an end in itself, but it’s especially important at a time like now when everyone is keen to stay out of hospital.’
Ruth Tennant, tobacco lead for the Association of Directors of Public Health, said: ‘There are so many reasons to quit smoking but never a more important time than right now during the coronavirus pandemic.’
The founder of the #QuitforCOVID campaign on Twitter, Bristol GP Charlie Kenward, encouraged more people to stop smoking amid the pandemic and beyond.
‘Stopping smoking remains the single biggest thing people can do to improve their overall health,’ he said.
‘It will improve heart and lung health as well as reducing the chances of developing cancer and even improve wound healing after surgery.
‘There has never been a better time to quit.’
Last month, David Hockney, a world-famous artist now aged 82, penned a letter to the Daily Mail on this topic sparking a global conversation. This question is now being analysed by scientists are yielding ‘bizarre’ results
One person who abandoned a deeply-ingrained smoking habit recently is 79-year-old Tag Doogan a retired pattern cutter originally from Cumbria now living in London, who had smoked 30 cigarettes a day for six decades.
Ms Doogan ditched the lifelong addiction in November for her grandchildren and said she feels she has given herself the best chance if she ends up ‘facing the virus’.
Ms Doogan, who has two young grandsons, Eddie, four, and Louis, six, said: ‘Smoking is bad for the grandchildren, and I wanted to be a better, kinder person.’
After a stint in hospital and a trip to the gym at the medical facility, a doctor witnessed her gasping for breath due to the air conditioning and light exercise, and told Ms Toogan she was ‘half dead’.
Since abandoning cigarettes, her lung capacity has improved by 130 per cent her blood pressure has dropped to a healthy level, and she has experienced ‘amazing’ mental health benefits.
‘I can face the virus because I’ve given up smoking – it’s got all the positives,’ she said.
‘I would feel so guilty if I was still smoking, and the fact that I might die because of not breathing and being very uncomfortable.’
The government has previously pledged to see smoking in England die out by 2030 by offering help quitting and improving education on the hazards posed by tobacco.
And the Local Government Association said councils will play a role in helping this happen.
Community Wellbeing Board chairman Ian Hudspeth said: ‘Smokers are at particular risk of COVID-19 and it is encouraging that so many have quit the habit for good.
‘Councils can help the Government to achieve its ambition of eliminating smoking in England by 2030, through their tobacco control and other public health and support services, but need certainty over their long-term funding to help do so.’