Smoking should be forbidden on outdoor terraces and other communal areas as a measure to stop the spread of coronavirus, a public health commission organised by Spain’s Health Ministry has recommended.
First published in Gazette Life, August 1st 2020.
The commission recommended that those who do smoke should do so in “separate, outdoor areas”, and that they should wash their hands before and after smoking. It concluded that smoking was not only harmful to health on its own, but the constant manipulation of face masks and hand-to-mouth touching that it involves makes transmission more probable.
The recommendations, which are not yet law but are likely to influence future policy, also apply to vaping and e-cigarettes as well as water pipes or shishas.
