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. 2022 Aug;29(36):55302-55310.
doi: 10.1007/s11356-022-21240-8. Epub 2022 Jun 10.

Can smoking prevalence explain COVID-19 indicators (cases, mortality, and recovery)? A comparative study in OECD countries

Yuval Arbel  1 , Chaim Fialkoff  2 , Amichai Kerner  3 , Miryam Kerner  4
Affiliations

Can smoking prevalence explain COVID-19 indicators (cases, mortality, and recovery)? A comparative study in OECD countries

Yuval Arbel et al. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Aug.

Abstract

There are many risk factors associated with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, including low wind speed, fossil fuel energy production, air pollution, and smoking. Several studies argue that smoking is not a risk factor for COVID-19 morbidity among males or any other sub-group. The study aims to analyze the following research questions: (1) can smoking prevalence explain COVID-19 indicators (cases, mortality, and recovery)? Are these relationships monotonically increasing or decreasing? In an attempt to test the counter-intuitive possibility of a non-linear relationship, the proposed empirical model relaxes the assumption of monotonic change by applying the quadratic design and testing which one of the two competing models (quadratic or linear) better fits the data. Findings suggest more complex relationships between corona indices and prevalence of smoking than previously thought. These patterns might be explained by several conditions such as the attenuation of hypercytokinemia for mild levels of smoking prevalence compared with non-smokers, elevated social distancing of smokers in countries with lower smoking prevalence, and unidentified factors that should be examined in future research.

Keywords: ACE2 receptor; COVID-19; Hypercytokinemia; OECD; Smoking Prevalence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Projected corona cases per 100,000 persons vs. prevalence of smokers
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Projected rate of severe corona patients vs. prevalence of smokers. Note that Figs. 1 and 2 are based on projections obtained from regression outcomes reported in columns (1) and (2) of Table 2 and 95% confidence intervals
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Projected rate of recovered corona patients vs. prevalence of smokers
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Projected mortality rate from coronavirus vs. prevalence of smokers. Note that Appendices A and B are based on projections obtained from regression outcomes reported in columns (3) and (5) of Table 2 and 95% confidence intervals
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