A Media Analysis of the COVID-19 Tobacco Sales Ban in South Africa.

ABSTRACT: The South African government introduced a nationwide lockdown in March 2020 to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Among other restrictions, the government banned the sale of tobacco products. The ban lasted for nearly five months. We performed a Google search using the keywords smok*, puff*, lockdown, tobacco, and cigarette* for articles published in English from 23 March 2020 to 18 December 2020. This yielded 441 usable online media articles. We identified and categorised the main arguments made by proponents and opponents of the tobacco sales ban. Three themes were identified: medical, legal, and economic/financial. Legal aspects were covered in 48% of articles, followed by economic (34%), and medical aspects (18%). The media was generally ambivalent about the tobacco sales ban during the

SUBMITTER: Dare C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10531267 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature