Prof Jenkins said it would be “astonishing” if smokers were not at greater risk of Covid-19 than non smokers. And he said there may be a link between high smoking rates and severity of the disease.

“China has extremely high rates of COPD and it also has high rates of severe pneumonia. In this particular coronavirus 15 per cent of the Chinese population who have been infected have severe respiratory disease and around two per cent have died - in the rest of the world the disease doesn’t seem to be as bad.

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