[Taxacom] Older smokers and the new coronavirus

[Kenneth Kinman]

Dear All,
       It is interesting to note that the death rate from the new coronavirus is low among children.  Most deaths are older and/or sick from other diseases.  Given the prevalence of smoking in China, it is perhaps not surprising that the death rate is much higher among older men and very low in young children.   After all, coronaviruses cause respiratory disease and lungs damaged by smoking would be far more vulnerable.
       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."   I wonder 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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From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> on behalf of Kenneth Kinman via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2020 8:44 PM
To: taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Subject: [Taxacom] Hysteria over the new coronavirus

Dear All,
      The news media seems to be overly hyping the threat of the new coronovirus.  However, the threat might not be any more than the related SARS virus (which killed about 800 people worldwide).  Furthermore, the threat of the flu is far greater (well over 8,000 deaths in the U.S. so far this season and probably hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide).  Hysteria like this could needlessly divert resources from detecting something even more deadly (which could cause a real pandemic).
       Quote:  "When we think about the relative danger of this new coronavirus and influenza, there's just no comparison," William Schaffner, a vaccine expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told Kaiser Health News (KHN)<https://khn.org/news/flu-far-deadlier-than-wuhan-virus/>. "Coronavirus will be a blip on the horizon in comparison."
                                 --------------Ken Kinman

Source of quotes from William Schaffner:    https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-lesser-threat-to-americans-than-flu-2020-1

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