With lockdowns being lifted and offices besides all public spaces except wedding halls and educational institutions being re-opened, the threat of a sudden spike in coronavirus infections, despite the continuous drop, has once again risen its ugly head.
While many people are taking necessary precautions, some are not, owing to which all of us have found ourselves assessing our surroundings and avoiding the virus as much as possible.
Many amid the prevailing situation, among other things are wondering if one can get COVID-19 from secondhand smoke?
Here’s what we know…
Secondhand smoke isn’t believed to directly spread the virus, experts say, but infected smokers may blow droplets carrying the virus when they exhale.
Being able to smell the smoke might be a red flag that you’re standing too close to the smoker. The respiratory droplets people spray when they talk, cough or sneeze are believed to be the main way the virus spreads. And people also exhale those droplets when smoking, as well as when they’re vaping.
“Not only are they potentially spreading the virus by not wearing a mask, they are blowing those droplets to the people around them to potentially get infected,” says Dr Albert Rizzo, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association.
You should steer clear of secondhand smoke regardless. Breathing in secondhand smoke from cigarettes can cause various health problems, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By the time this report was filed, the number of coronavirus infections in Pakistan stood at 294,668 with 279,630 recoveries and 6,275 deaths. Sindh continued to have the lead with 128,877 cases with Punjab trailing at 96,540 infections, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Islamabad with 35,923 and 15,562 cases, respectively.
The number of infections in Balochistan stood at 12,721 while Gilgit-Baltistan had 2,773 cases and Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJ&K) had 2,272.
