HealthDay reports, “As COVID-19 has surged throughout the United States for the past year and a half, some may have picked up an old bad habit or started a new one.” Researchers “discovered that cigarette sales jumped during the first 15 months of the pandemic, exceeding their own estimates by 14%.” For the study, the researchers “compared cigarette sales from March 2020 to June 2021 with predicted sales based on the long-term declining trend before the pandemic, from January 2007 to February 2020, then adjusted for expected changes, including seasonality.” The findings of the research report were published online Oct. 19 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

From the news release of the American Association for Justice.