[Taxacom] possible covariates for corona virus virulence

[Timothy Dickinson]

good point. children nevertheless have relatively undamaged lungs (short exposure times), whereas mortality is high in older patients with often (?) life-long exposures to tobacco smoke and/or pollution. let us know if you succeed in finding relevant data!


---tad.



On 2020-02-03 6:08 p.m., Kenneth Kinman wrote:
Hi Timothy,

      It is interesting to note that the severity of cases and the death rate from the new coronavirus are very low among children.   Children would also be exposed to the pollution, so that makes me think that smoking is perhaps more of a factor than pollution (although being a smoker and also exposed to heavy pollution would be a double whammy for adult smokers).
       The same seems to have been true of the SARS coronavirus:  "A notable feature of the 2003 global SARS outbreak was the relative paucity of cases reported among children."   Anyway, I am still trying to find out if there are any numbers available on smokers vs. non-smokers among those who died from the various coronavirus outbreaks.
                          --------------Ken Kinman

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17195709

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Subject: [Taxacom] possible covariates for corona virus virulence

I have been struck by mention in BBC articles that the first Chinese
corona virus victim in Wuhan was a heavy smoker, among other things.
more recently...


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