More information is needed after a French study suggested nicotine might play a role in preventing some illness from the coronavirus. Nicotine is not thought to attack sars-cov-2 directly. It may, however,
play an indirect role that involves a cell-membrane protein called ace2,
to which the virus attaches itself in order to gain access to a cell.
Some researchers suspect that nicotine binds to ace2 as well, and that
this makes it harder for the virus to do so alongside it.