Another killer — smoking, specifically tobacco use — extinguishes seven million lives per year.

Since smoking compromises the immune system, the body would be in an especially vulnerable state were one to contract the novel coronavirus.

Smoking and COVID-19 have the lungs — the body's critical oxygen sacs — as prime targets.

While smoking often leads to lung cancer and lung-related ailments, COVID-19 can result in lung complications, for example, pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

This is no consolation for smokers or those who have contracted the virus, as this new phenomenon will, again, like smoking and COVID-19, affect or seek to clog the lungs.