In 40 years of smoking, Katie Kennedy has tried four times to quit but always went back to cigarettes. Today, she is summoning a new mental image when a craving comes on: rows of COVID-19 patients hooked to ventilators.
Kennedy’s dad also smoked. He was on a ventilator before he died, and seeing how invasive the machine was and watching his discomfort and distress made Kennedy vow not to die like that.
“I just decided it’s time to protect my lungs as much as I can,” said Kennedy, 59, who started a cessation class in Sacramento in March. “COVID-19 is quite a motivator.”
Early studies suggest that smokers who develop COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, are 14 times more likely to need intensive treatment compared with nonsmokers. Doctors in California are seizing this moment to highlight the connection between COVID-19 and smoking as another reason people should quit.
The toll-free California Smokers’ Helpline—(800) NO-BUTTS — which offers free cessation advice, is redirecting research money to provide two weeks of free nicotine patches.
Calls to the helpline in March were down 27.5 percent compared with the same month last year — which the staff attributes mainly to people being too stressed out to consider quitting. Nonetheless, staffers say some callers are referencing the coronavirus and the upheaval of the state’s stay-at-home order as their inspiration to quit.
“I spoke with a gentleman last week who is seriously taking this time to reorganize his life,” said Nallely Espina, a counselor with the help line. “He’s setting a new routine for himself at home and staying away from his smoker friends, which was one of his main triggers.”
A man in his mid-20s was prompted to call after he read a news article about how even young people who smoke could have more severe health complications from the virus, she said. About half her callers are using the time at home to revamp their habits: start yoga, meditation or a healthier diet. The rest seem supremely frazzled, being trapped inside with their families.
Espina helped one dad devise new coping strategies.
“Going outside and having that cigarette, it’s his time out from the kids,” she said. “So for him, we decided let’s still go outside, but instead of having a cigarette, maybe you spend those minutes doing a few pushups and burpees? And he loved that idea. He went for it.”
California public health agencies are incorporating information about the link between smoking and the coronavirus into their social media and public outreach messages, building on a 30-year legacy of aggressive anti-smoking campaigns and policies.
The state was the first to ban smoking on airplanes and in restaurants and bars, adding a long list of other public spaces over the years that made smoking logistically difficult and culturally unpopular. As a result, California has the second-lowest smoking rate in the country at 11.3 percent — after Utah, where only 8.9 percent of the population smokes.
Researchers have long known that smoking makes it harder to fight off respiratory infections, because it increases mucus production and paralyzes cilia, the hairlike fibers in the respiratory tract and lungs that normally flush out invaders.
This story was produced by Kaiser Health News,
