Should smokers get the vaccine early?
Friday, January 22, 2021 at 16:45 Should smokers get the Covid vaccine early?
The question arises because a report in America on Monday revealed that:
New Jersey this week made millions of people eligible to get the Covid-19 vaccine, including smokers, a move that prompted gripes about them skipping to the front of the inoculation line.
Other reports suggest that at least half a dozen states may prioritise smokers while one headline declared: 'Smokers' vaccine priority raises eyebrows, but medical experts say it's important'.
I have my own opinion but I'd be interested to hear yours, especially if you're a smoker.
Let's be clear, though. Prioritising smokers won't happen in the UK because research clearly suggests that current smokers may be at less risk of being infected or hospitalised compared to ex-smokers or never smokers.
Whether smokers are at greater risk once hospitalised is a different issue because the vaccine is designed to prevent infection or hospitalisation in the first place.
Nevertheless, if you were offered an 'early' vaccine simply because you are a smoker would you accept it or wait to be given the jab with the rest of your age group?
The curious thing is, while no-one in Britain is calling for smokers to be prioritised – or bumped up the queue – it would surely suit the tobacco control narrative that smokers are (a) at greater risk from Covid and (b) addicts who need our help.
Offering smokers an early vaccine, on condition they pledge to quit by signing up to a 'stop smoking' service, might be just the sort of 'help' they need.
Or perhaps the tobacco control lobby accepts, deep down, the Forest argument that smoking is more of a choice than an addiction and if it's a choice it would be morally wrong for smokers to jump the queue.
Anyway, I think it's an interesting question – one for Radio 4's Moral Maze perhaps – but the response on our Facebook page was disappointing so perhaps it's just me.
If you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them.
Update: Pennsylvania is now allowing smokers to receive COVID-19 vaccine first alongside nurses and doctors because it's a 'high-risk medical condition' (Daily Mail)
Reader Comments (4)
"Nevertheless, if you were offered an 'early' vaccine simply because you are a smoker would you accept it or wait to be given the jab with the rest of your age group?"
Certainly not, it would just be another in a long chain of insults.
After 13+ years of government mandated "social distancing" I can wait a few more months.
Apart from which, if there should be any unexpected side effects from the vaccines, they can't blame it on smoking like they usually do.
Apparently hatred of smokers (and the obese) has emboldened this academic computer geek to speak out: https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-dont-put-smokers-toward-front-line-20210120-ob6zmzx72jcilhpalyruhbmkgu-story.html
It is up to the smoker. I'll bet the anti smoker industry is so proud of the hatred it has inspired against people who have largely kept the economy going with unfair punitive high tax during lockdowns which has probably paid more to he!p government fund vaccines than the purutan bullies who screech scum like us have only one right - The right to die.
I know who the scum in society is and it is not people discriminated against, abused, marginalised and stigmatised for no other reason than they use a legal product and pay massive amounts of tax to help those in their communities who hate them and frankly don't deserve another single penny of smokers' tax.
Cigarette smoking and COVID-19
2021 Jan 20
"The role of cigarette smoking/nicotine (or whatever else is contained within cigarette smoke) in the scientific discussion on COVID-19 ignores the fact that smoke cessation has to be discouraged to avoid COVID-19 pulmonary complications (this seems obvious for scientists and physicians) but references the scientific importance of the strong epidemiological data coming from all the countries that hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV-2 related pneumonia show quite low percentages of active smokers."
"In the case of active smoking and COVID-19, to hide ones head in the sand will not help rapid scientific progress in the discovery of the pathophysiology of this disease and of its possible therapeutic strategies."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7817467/
It's amazing that they still can't work out what is responsible for the protective effect, but I have heard that results on clinical trials of nitric oxide are due in April.
Such a shame that they banned medical staff from smoking on hospital grounds. The date of this release is less than a year before the outbreak.
PHE calls on all NHS trusts to ban smoking on hospital grounds
31 May 2019
"Public Health England (PHE) has found that trusts are making steady progress in becoming smokefree, with smoking now banned completely on the grounds of more than two thirds (69%) of NHS acute trusts in England. Yet despite this progress, almost a third (31%) have not yet enforced total smoking bans across hospital premises.
The survey was carried out as part of PHE’s Smokefree NHS campaign, which encourages all hospitals to provide smokefree environments as part of supporting smokers to quit and reducing tobacco-related harms. The NHS Five Year Forward View included a commitment for all trusts to have fully smokefree sites by spring 2020."
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-calls-on-all-nhs-trusts-to-ban-smoking-on-hospital-grounds