That's interesting. I decided to look up to see if there were any theories on why that might be the case. It looks like results on this are inconclusive across the board and conflict of interest rears its ugly head yet again, but I found this:

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-maga...

"One study suggests this could be because nicotine interferes with ACE2 receptors, which may prevent the virus from entering cells."