A nicotinic hypothesis for Covid-19 with preventive and therapeutic implications

> Nicotine may be suggested as a potential preventive agent against Covid-19 infection. Both the epidemiological/clinical evidence and the in silico findings may suggest that Covid-19 infection is a nAChR disease that could be prevented and may be controlled by nicotine.

> One should not forget that nicotine is a drug of abuse [55] responsible for smoking addiction. Smoking has severe pathological consequences and remains a serious danger for health. Yet under controlled settings, Nicotinic agents could provide an efficient treatment for an acute infection such as Covid-19.

This research says otherwise: https://content.gmu.edu/news/584496

> “Prolonged nicotine exposure systemically—through various kinds of smoking habits—may thus provide a cellular mechanism for susceptibility to the virus and impact illness severity,” she said. “The activation of nicotinic receptors by smoking is coupled to how the host receptor for the virus, ACE2, is distributed on lung epithelial cells.”

I feel like looking at the statistics for the Scandinavian countries might be useful.

That's a pretty large population of nicotine users who don't smoke.