According to a YouGov poll, commissioned by ASH, ‘more than 300,000 UK smokers may have quit owing to Covid-19 fears.’
At least, that’s how the Guardian headlined the story. The ITV News report didn’t even bother with that small qualification:
More than 300,000 Britons have [my emphasis] quit smoking during the coronavirus crisis as evidence mounts that the habit leaves them more vulnerable to Covid-19, a survey suggests.
A further 550,000 Britons have tried to quit, while 2.4 million have cut down, according to the joint study by the UK arm of YouGov’s international Covid-19 tracker in conjunction with anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).
Based on a single poll, these are remarkably confident statements.
The survey, of 1,004 people, suggested 2% of smokers had now quit due to Covid-19 concerns.
In addition, 8% of smokers said they were trying to quit, 36% said they had cut down, and 27% said they were now more likely to quit.
A quarter of ex-smokers said they were now less likely to resume smoking, although 4% say the pandemic had made them more likely to relapse.
The sample size - 1,004 people - interests me. It’s possible that YouGov polled 1,004 smokers and former smokers but the reports don’t say that.
I know a little bit about polling and I know it’s expensive to target a statistically significant number of adults who smoke.
To achieve a target of 1,000 smokers in the UK, for example, most pollsters would have to poll almost 7,000 members of the general public.
My guess is that YouGov polled 1,004 members of the general public (smokers, ex-smokers and non-smokers) of whom approximately 15 per cent would have been smokers at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, reflecting the national figure.
To be generous, let’s say 20 per cent of the YouGov sample were smokers. That would mean that YouGov polled only 200 smokers.
I may be wrong which is why I have asked YouGov for the data on which the poll is based:
In particular I would be grateful if you could confirm how many smokers and how many former smokers were identified in the sample of 1,004 people surveyed.
Meanwhile it’s worth noting that ASH is still claiming that ‘evidence mounts’ that smoking leaves smokers ‘more vulnerable to Covid-19’.
As readers know, there is plenty of conflicting evidence on the issue and it is currently impossible to draw definitive conclusions either way.
Indeed, as I wrote on Friday, the most recent academic review - echoing other reports - found the current data ‘inconclusive’.
Untroubled by this inconvenient truth, ASH has chosen to double down with relentless propaganda, a tactic once described - by its own CEO - as a “confidence trick”.
They must think that the more they repeat something the more it will be believed.
It’s not a bad tactic. After all, it’s worked for them before - the repeated insistence, for example, that passive smoking is a significant threat to other people’s health.
Like the boy who cried wolf, the risk is that, eventually, people will stop listening because ASH will have shot whatever credibility they have left.
Covid-19 is going to be a game changer for many ‘experts’ and organisations - the World Health Organisation, Public Health England and many more.
Lobby groups, especially those that shout the loudest, are also going to come under intense scrutiny when this is all over.
Some will enhance their reputation, others will be seen for what they are - naked opportunists and scaremongering propagandists.
I wonder which side of the line ASH will fall.
Update: The Market Research Society writes, 'If data tables have not been published ask for a copy.'
I emailed YouGov at 8:39 yesterday (Monday) to ask for a copy. 24 hours later, no response.