Coronavirus: Health experts argue for smoking ban to save more lives

If we’re prepared to trash the economy to save lives, banning smoking can’t be too big an ask, health experts say.

People wearing protective masks while smoking last week in New York, the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in the US. Picture: Getty Images.

Public health experts have called for a ban on cigarette sales, declaring the government’s response to the coronavirus “farcical” given how many more people died annually from tobacco-related illnesses.

COVID-19 would be “unlikely to ever match the relentless and growing annual toll from tobacco smoking” and its spread was an “opportune time to move towards removing cigarettes from general retail sale”, according to analysis published in the latest issue of Tobacco Control, an international health journal.

The death toll from COVID-19, which has infected almost 6000 Australians, reached 50 in Australia on Wednesday. Around 15,000 Australians die each year from tobacco related illnesses, according to the Cancer Council.

“If governments had acted to protect the public from tobacco with a fraction of the effort (and financial investment) they have exerted to control this coronavirus, many millions of lives could have been saved, and underlying demand on health services significantly reduced,” they said.

Authors Marita Hefler and Coral Gartner, of Charles Darwin and Queensland Universities, respectively, said tobacco smoking – which kills around 8 million people annually – was “a greater, sustained strain” than the coronavirus, which has killed around 70,000 globally, mainly in Europe, China and the United States.

“In China, there have been just over 3300 COVID-19 deaths compared with approximately 1 million each year from tobacco. In Italy, which currently has the highest deaths per million of the population, there have been nearly 14,000 deaths from COVID-19, compared with 93,300 each year from tobacco,” they said.

The government released modelling on Tuesday that estimated 35,000 extra intensive care beds a day would have been required if 23 million Australians became infected by COVID-19, enough to overwhelm the health system’s capacity.

The researchers’ warning came as the federal parliament met to pass the biggest single expenditure measure in the nation’s history, a $130bn wage subsidy scheme to help curb unemployment and bolster the economy amid strict social distancing rules that have caused swathes industry to shut down.

Despite strong evidence a history of smoking worsened the effects of COVID-19, governments had done little to stem the sale of cigarettes, even in Italy and France, “where tobacco shops are still open”, the authors said.

“The contradiction between shutting down to protect the community from a deadly virus, while minimising disruption to continue to produce the most lethal consumer product in history, is farcical,” they added.

In its latest budget, update the government forecast tobacco excise receipts of $17.2 billion this financial year.

“Given the role of social cues in relapse during quit attempts, self-isolation may make quitting easier for some, although there is a need to provide support for people to manage stress and mitigate mental health risks,” the article said.