Intriguing to see people trying to trick up the Covid bug with their species of science, superstition and stupidity over the last couple of years.
Leave it alone and it will go away remains the top-ranking Darwin Awards-style approach, to my mind.
But the other disinfectant, de-wormers, diets, sunlight, cocaine, cannabis and chloroform, all the UV radiation and other quack cures certainly warrant recognition in some kind of Hall of Fame for Imbecility.
Covid’s proven itself a fair little shite. Nasty, constantly-morphing, still claiming thousands of lives that many of us no longer seem terribly fussed about. Barring the medical fraternity and those with elderly relatives, that is.
But there’s one protection that seems to have gone well and truly under the radar. Almost as if no-one wants to know about it.
Or so the people at Spiked suggest, with a scientific angle, pointing to smokers being 50 per cent less likely to get Covid. That’s a scientific angle with 100 studies to date, it says.
Reminds me of the old GPs arguing smoking’s good for keeping colds and bugs at bay. Good for your throat. Creates too hostile an environment for them, or somesuch.
“Don’t be foolish, take your doctor’s advice: Smoke a fresh cigarette,” said the advertisements.
The Covid-smoking prophylactic theory is predicated on nicotine competing with the virus for the ACE2 receptors within your carcass.
Curious to hear, too, that smoker patients with Covid have better outcomes in hospital if you give them nicotine patches. Stop them climbing up the wall if nothing else, I suspect.
As kids, we smoked bus tickets and tea leaves in dunny paper. Some graduated to more transcendental stuff. I’ve met blokes who could annihilate a dozen bongs and smash a Point Henry Alcoa lung capacity test. Others, of course, weren’t so lucky. Potroom asthma’s another shite.
It is intriguing to hear smoking was recommended for asthmatics from the 17th century until the 1930s when adrenaline came in.
I know, all sounds like recommending Ivermectin. Smoking’s bad for you. Lighting a third rollie from the one match in the trenches at night was always asking for a mortar in your lap.
So what do you think – take up smoking and dodge Covid?
Who knows? Maybe it has a role to play in herd immunity. Might even help the public hospital bill.
Remember TV’s Jim Hacker, in Yes Prime Minister, when he wanted to ban smoking?
“But cigarette taxes pay for a third of the cost of the National Health Service,” Sir Humphrey reminded him.
“We are saving many more lives than we otherwise could because of those smokers who voluntarily lay down their lives for their friends.”
Hmmm, but you’ll still need to kick the sick smokers out of those crowded hospital beds ….
To make room for the anti-smoking anti-vaxxers, of course.
This article appeared in the Geelong Advertiser 13 December 2022
