[boomboomsubban]

Pure guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if fewer smokers went to the hospital for minor cases. Most of the common symptoms for the illness are things smokers regularly deal with like a loss of taste and smell, congestion, coughing, and breathing difficulties. So unless things are pretty bad, being sick might seem better than getting hospitalized and going through withdrawal.

I hope whatever wide scale antibody test they do ask if the person smokes as well.

[sabellito]

That doesn't really make sense. Whatever are a person's current indicators on the symptoms you just listed, if they were to worsen during this pandemic, people would probably consider going to the hospital.

Apart from perhaps coughing, smokers don't "regularly deal" with any of that. Smokers don't have a "sudden loss of sense of smell".

[BugsJustFindMe]

> Smokers don't have a "sudden loss of sense of smell".

Right. They have a _persistent_ loss of sense of smell. Regaining sense of smell is one of the major changes that ex-smokers notice after quitting. This is very widely known.

> Apart from perhaps coughing, smokers don't "regularly deal" with any of that.

Google "smoker sense of smell" and "smoker sense of taste" and "smoker shortness of breath".

[watwut]

I never heard about that and definitely did not noticed anything like that when I stopped smoking.

[boomboomsubban]

How long and heavy you smoked probably matters, and if you aren't expecting it you may not notice your sense of smell and taste slowly getting sharper over a few months.

Personally, quitting smoking led me to eat far less fast food, as I noticed how terrible much of it tasted.

[watwut]

Parent claimed this: Regaining sense of smell is one of the major changes that ex-smokers notice after quitting.

Slow change over course of moths that you don't notice unless you know about it is hardly that.

[boomboomsubban]

Major changes that happen gradually are incredibly hard to notice if you aren't expecting them, and even if you did notice you might just think it's because you got over a cold or spring is here or similar.

[kolinko]

People don’t get hospitalised because of just a loss of smell.

[boomboomsubban]

I do not understand why you think my post said they did.