Mechanisms in Which Smoking Increases the Risk of COVID-19 Infection: A Narrative Review

At present, covid-19 continues to spread around the world. people are generally susceptible to sars-cov-2. the elderly, serious chronic underlying diseases, high-risk pregnancy, severe obesity and other factors are related to the progression of covid-19 to severe, critical illness, and even death caused by deterioration of the disease. the relationship between smoking and covid-19 seems to be controversial. the smoking rate of hospitalized covid-19 patients is significantly lower than that of the general population. therefore, smoking can reduce covid-19 infection and protect the respiratory tract. subsequently, many scholars have carried out research on this, thinking that this is a wrong and misleading conclusion. according to who, smoking is significantly related to the severity of covid-19, which is one of the important risk factors for the deterioration and poor prognosis of covid-19. this article reviews the mechanism of smoking increasing the risk of covid-19 infection.