Coronavirus will not spread in vape clouds unless the user coughs when they exhale, a scientist claims after reports the killer virus lurked in e-cigarette vapor.
A Scottish microbiologist, Tom McLean, sparked fear recently after warning that inhaling someone else’s vapor was the same as “being spat in the face” and vapers may be spreading their germs with the aid of vape clouds.
But Dr. Neal Benowitz, an emeritus professor of medicine of the University of California San Francisco, claims the level of mucus and saliva in vapor is so minimal that it is unlikely to cause infection, as there is not enough evidence to prove that vape clouds carried enough germs to infect others.
A study of more than 44,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in China found that men are more likely to die of the virus. Males had a fatality rate of 2.8% compared to 1.7% for women.
Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, said recently that smoking may be a good hypothesis for why the virus has affected more men, but the study of 140 coronavirus patients in Wuhan found that only 1.4% of them were current smokers.