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The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

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Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#21

Post by Godel_unicode »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #6

If this were actually true we would see elites and politicians constantly smoking, since it would be keeping them safer and they have access to infinite resources, knowledge, etc. Instead we see them getting vaccinated (sometimes in secret or with no acknowledgement like Trump did) and guzzling Paxlovid courses (multiple times like Fauci did) if they do get sick. I'm sticking with the pharmaceutical interventions tha…

> have access to infinite resources, knowledge, etc.

I find the pervasiveness of this idea fascinating since it usually falls apart on backtesting. There are tons of elites who get taken in by Ponzi schemes (just look at Madoffs client list), lots of very well connected people lost a ton of money in 08, lots of celebrities use Goop products, etc.

Are there counter examples? I have not found much evidence that there’s some secret elites-only repository of knowledge.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#22

Post by acdha »

This story is trying way too hard to be controversial, starting with the incorrect claim that “back then Big Tech’s fact-checkers were still describing claims about SARS-CoV-2 being airborne and face masks preventing infection as ‘misleading’”. His recounting of his personal Google search results is an amusing anecdote but it’s just showing his search history - the same search without a Google cookie turns up a couple of recent peer-reviewed studies which found smokers had higher risks of complications from infections.

The actual topic is more interesting than the framing: it’s been observed since pretty early on and covered in both conventional and social media but there wasn’t a firm explanation, and nobody sane was going to recommend taking up smoking as a preventative measure so it’s unclear what other coverage the author expected.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#23

Post by dang »

chewmieser wrote: post #5

I think to call it a "cover-up" is a bit silly. One important thing to call out is that former smoker status does seem to result in an increased risk. Only current status MAY be a reduced risk. It seems more study is needed but I'm obviously not as invested in this as the author of this article is.

I agree that "cover-up" is baity and therefore we should edit the title (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait").

However, I can't think of a good way to fit HN's 80 char limit without changing the meaning. The title needs to include both the author's claim about what the studies show, and the author's claim that this finding has been dismissed or suppressed or overlooked (pick a neutral word) because of its nonconformity.

I've put a question mark up there for the time being.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#24

Post by bacchusracine »

askiiart wrote: post #10

[Snopes]( https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/05/07/does-nicotine-protect... ) - from 2020, but unbiased, at least > The researchers have proposed nicotine attaches to the ACE2 receptors, thereby preventing the virus from attaching and potentially reducing the amount of virus that can get into a person’s lung cells. As for potential bias: > Further, around 60% of the hospitalised patients in the study were ex-smokers (s…

>but unbiased, at least

It's Snopes. No such thing. They sold their credibility for a mess of money and political activism. No refunds.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#28

Post by NicoJuicy »

There was a study about this and i was aware of this.

Not sure what qualifies as a cover-up It was also not broadly mentioned that vitamine d reduces the chance to catch COVID.

I don't see a big conspiracy in that.

Ps. If i remember it correctly, it was that COVID couldn't attach to some cells in the lungs well. Which reduced the odds to catch COVID.

Ps 2. There's also an interesting study when you catch COVID early on and take pure CBD oil.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#29

Post by imgabe »

In the height of the pandemic when people were grasping desperately at anything that appeared to help (wiping down groceries, holding your breath to “prove” you didn’t have covid, drinking fish tank cleaner etc) I have to admit it makes sense to downplay something like smoking preventing Covid.

Covid had/has a pretty low mortality rate and now there is an effective vaccine. It makes sense to not encourage people to take up a highly addictive habit with myriad lifelong health effects just to maybe prevent a disease that would likely have harmed them much less than smoking anyway.

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