Impact of alcohol consumption on coronavirus disease 2019 severity: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Abstract Fear and misinformation lead to widespread myths in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic, such as “consuming high‐strength alcohol kills the virus in the inhaled air.” However, whether alcohol consumption can affect COVID‐19 has not been clarified yet. This study aims to investigate the impact of alcohol consumption on COVID‐19 severity. PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Central, CINAHL, ClinicalTrials.gov , and WHO‐International Clinical Trials Registry Platform were searched until November 25, 2022. Forty studies (1,697,683 COVID‐19 individuals) were analyzed. Brown (patients numbers: 1317, risk ratios [RR] = 1.58, 95% [confidence interval] CI = 1.31 to 1.90, I 2 = 0.0%, p < 0.001), American (patients numbers: 3721, RR = 1.51, 95% CI = 1.30 to 1.75, I 2 = 0.0%, p < 0.001), and European (patients numbers: 261,437, RR = 2.04, 95% CI = 1.96 to 2.13, I 2 = 0.0%, p < 0.001) drinkers were at high risk of severe COVID‐19, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, and invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV), respectively. Consistently, individuals with a drinking history were at high risk of severe COVID‐19 (patients numbers: 5399, RR = 1.23, 95% CI = 1.02 to 1.48, I 2 = 38.4%, p = 0.03) and ICU admission (patients numbers: 6995, RR = 1.32, 95% CI = 1.08 to 1.60, I 2 = 46.6%, p = 0.01). In addition, current drinkers had an increased risk of symptomatic COVID‐19. However, excessive drinkers were at high risk of COVID‐19 hospitalization. Alcohol consumption intensifies COVID‐19 severity and deteriorates its clinical outcomes. Here, we strongly propose that people do not drink alcohol during the COVID‐19 pandemic.