First it was reusable bags, then mass transit and urban crowds. Hey Greens, suck on this

French researchers suggest reaching for a Lucky instead of a sweet

French researchers are planning to trial whether nicotine patches will help prevent - or lessen the effects of - the deadly coronavirus. 

Evidence is beginning to show the proportion of smokers infected with coronavirus is much lower than the rates in the general population. 

Scientists are now questioning whether nicotine could stop the virus from infecting cells, or if it may prevent the immune system overreacting to the infection.

Doctors at a major hospital in Paris - who also found low rates of smoking among the infected - are now planning to give nicotine patches to COVID-19 patients.  

They will also give them to frontline workers to see if the stimulant has any effect on preventing the spread of the virus, according to reports. 

It comes after world-famous artist David Hockney last week said he believes smoking could protect people against the deadly coronavirus.

MailOnline looked at the science and found he may have been onto something, with one researcher saying there was 'bizarrely strong' evidence it could be true.  

One study in China, where the pandemic began, showed only 6.5 per cent of COVID-19 patients were smokers, compared to 26.6 per cent of the population.

Another study, by the Centers for Disease Control in the US, found just 1.3 per cent of hospitalised patients were smokers - compared to 14 per cent of America.

The researchers determined that far fewer smokers appear to have contracted the virus or, if they have, their symptoms are less serious.

'Our cross-sectional study strongly suggests that those who smoke every day are much less likely to develop a symptomatic or severe infection with Sars-CoV-2 compared with the general population,' the study reads. 

'The effect is significant. It divides the risk by five for ambulatory patients and by four for those admitted to hospital. We rarely see this in medicine.'

Next myth-buster; computer models that pretend to predict the temperature thirty years from now.