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It's well established that the best thing smokers can do for their health is to quit. Smoking contributes to many of the underlying conditions that undermine recovery from coronavirus and it is pretty clear that a coronavirus patient who smokes will likely have a worse outcome than one who doesn't. The FDA in the US recently went so far as to suggest smoking might increase the risk of contracting the virus at all. Nevertheless, existing data coming from various studies of patients around the world appear to show smaller numbers of smokers amongst the hospitalized cases than might be expected from local smoking populations. There are fewer smokers than there should be in the data. But why?As the University of Edinburgh and CRUK's Prof Linda Bauld tells Claudia, there may be several simple reasons for this, such as data gathering - that patients' smoking status is going unrecorded or unverified. But a study last week from France goes so far as to suggest that nicotine itself, know to disrupt some of the receptors viruses use to enter cells, may be conferring some kind of a protection. It is just a hypothesis, but while the dangers of smoking tobacco still stand, studies on Covid-19 patients using nicotine patches might be worthwhile. And if you are trying to quit, nicotine replacement therapy might be an even better idea just now than was thought.Inside Health's resident GP Dr Margaret McCartney talks of her concerns for NHS non-urgent treatments being side-lined under the current virus squeeze, and some of her hopes for the future. Professor Pamela Qualter and Dr Margarita Panayioutou describe why lockdown is an important time to do more psychological research into the effects of loneliness and other responses while we have the chance.And in this week's update from Southampton General, where Inside Science's Erika Wright has been speaking to frontline health workers every week, Mr Robert Wheeler, a surgeon and clinical law expert muses on some of the legal aspects of our coronavirus response.

Every week we’re heading to Southampton General Hospital, where we’ve heard a lot about the doctors and nurses doing amazing work. But this week Erika Wright has been talking to Gemma Blanchett who does a job you might not even associate with the virus or with intensive care – and that’s physiotherapy. Gemma is a respiratory physiotherapist who has the joy of watching some recover with her extraordinary help.Recovery is going to be a long haul for some and can even take time for those who’ve had the virus with mild symptoms at home. So what do we know about how long a complete recovery takes? James Gill GP and Honorary Clinical Lecturer at Warwick Medical School discusses the latest insights.For people who have already found themselves worrying excessively about their health or who have an obsessive compulsive disorder related to hand washing, this is a particularly difficult time. With all of us now on the look-out for symptoms, Claudia Hammond speaks to Jo Daniels, a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology at Bath University who specialises in health anxiety, and David Adam, author of the Man Who Couldn’t Stop – an intimate account of the power of obsessional thoughts.There’s been a lot of discussion about how to get accurate numbers for the people who have died from the virus outside hospital and one issue that’s been raised is whether doctors are wary of putting Covid-19 on a death certificate, when there’s been so little testing in the community. GP Margaret McCartney examines the current dilemmas.Amidst a host of trials to find effective treatments against Covid19, are there existing drugs which no one has thought of yet? We hear from Dr Lindsay Broadbent whose team at Queens University are testing more than a thousand drugs on human lung cells infected with Covid19 in the lab, to see what might work for both mild and more severe infection.Producer Adrian Washbourne

A range of potential treatments have been suggested for Covid-19 but nobody knows if any of them will turn out to be more effective in helping people recover than the usual standard hospital care which all patients will receive. Inside Health regular Dr Margaret McCartney talks to Claudia about how the first randomised trials are now setting out to test some of these suggested treatments with unprecedented speed and adaptability as potential new drug candidates emerge.During lockdown some find their mental health is put at higher risk. Katie Connebear is a mental health campaigner and blogger who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder eight years ago. She has experienced psychotic episodes and has coping strategies in place for when she feels her mental health deteriorating. She offers her thoughts on how to make small progressive steps in the absence of family and friends who she normally relies on when times are difficult.We’ve the latest in Inside Health’s regular visits to test the temperature at Southampton General Hospital. During the current pandemic maternity wards have to make sure that the birth of babies happens in a way that keeps expectant mothers, their birth partners and staff safe from the virus. Government advice includes pregnant women in the “vulnerable group" who need to take extra steps to socially distance, with extra attention after 28 weeks. Consultant obstetrician Jo Mountfield is keen to allay pregnant women’s concerns.And with isolation set to continue, we can also learn from people who have lived in a different kind of lockdown – and one that was in many ways more extreme. Beth Healey is an intensive care doctor currently working in Switzerland who spent 14 months at Concordia research station in the Antarctic, investigating how the team coped with living in such an isolated environment She reveals the similarities in life there and life under lockdown here.Producer Adrian Washbourne