How the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted cigarette smoking rates in the Bay 15 Mar, 2021 06:00 PM 4 minutes to read The number of people who smoke cigarettes in the Bay of Plenty is still decreasing but a doctor says the Covid-19 pandemic has acted as a handbrake. It comes after the revelation more than a quarter of the 500,000 Kiwis who smoke said their cigarette intake increased during alert level 4 last year. Tauranga's Fifth Avenue Family Practice had 1.2 per cent of the practice's entire clientele give up smoking in the year to March 2020, with 727 then-current smokers. In the 12 months since, the total number of smokers has dropped 719, a reduction of 0.3 per cent.