Eight communities ask themselves if they prohibit smoking on the street like Galicia

Galicia prohibits from this Thursday smoking on the street or in public spaces such as terraces if the safety distance of two meters cannot be guaranteed. It is the first community to take the step, although there are several more that have been studying it for weeks with their scientific committees. Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León, which confirmed it on Wednesday, it is known this Thursday that Asturias, Cantabria, Navarra, the Valencian Community and Madrid also value it. In fact, the Madrid Minister of Health, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, has stated that they will take the measure "without any doubt" if they conclude that they have powers to do so. Experts such as those of the Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (Separ) recommend restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus.

En español

• Galicia bans smoking in public areas as Covid-19 cases continue to rise

The Galician acting president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, announced the new guideline on Wednesday at a press conference after meeting with the scientists who advise him: “Several members of the clinical committee agreed that smoking without any limitation, whether on a terrace, with close people, or in areas with a large influx of citizens, without any physical safety distance, is a high risk of contamination, of infection ”.

Several communities are studying implementing a similar measure. Castilla y León, for example, has raised it in the regional government's technical advisory group, but a decision has not yet been made, a spokesperson reported. Andalusia plans to study it this Thursday in a meeting with its experts. Castilla-La Mancha ensures that it is also evaluating it. So do the Public Health technicians of the Valencian Community. The Cantabrian vice president, Pablo Zuloaga, has said that it is one of the options that the Minister of Health has presented in the Governing Council, although a decision has not yet been made. Asturias also values ​​this measure, from an epidemiological and legal point of view. "In the coming days we will know the possibilities of being able to adopt it," said the Asturian government spokesperson, Melania Álvarez.

The Madrid Minister of Health, for his part, has assured that the Executive of Isabel Díaz Ayuso "valued the prohibition" at the time, but the technical services concluded that it was state competence and had "the doubt whether to increase the restriction." According to Ruiz Escudero, if "the possibility at the legislative level" that Galicia has used could be adapted, it would prohibit smoking on public roads "without any doubt" if the safety distance cannot be met.

The measure is in line with the document prepared in July by the Public Health Commission of the National Health System, which warned that smoking and vaping increase the risk of contagion of the coronavirus: when exhaling the smoke, the smoker throws droplets at the companions , in addition to the fact that when handling the mask you have a greater risk of contagion.

Alberto Fernández Villar, head of the Pneumology Service of the Vigo hospital and member of the clinical committee that has advised Feijóo, stresses that it is not a ban on smoking in the street, but rather that smokers “be strict when they do it , so that they are able to ensure that they maintain the minimum safe distance when they smoke in public ”. This specialist gives several reasons for putting this restriction in place. The first is public health: "It is known that smokers with covid-19 have a higher viral load and are potentially higher transmitters." When they exhale they expel more number of droplets in which the virus travels. “Now there is the paradox that a person is smoking on the street, walking without a mask and the rest of the non-smoker population is wearing a mask. We should all reflect on that, even smokers, ”he says.

More information

• Galicia prohibits smoking on the street or on terraces if there is no safety distance
• Smoking and vaping is bad for your health (and against the coronavirus)

There are also reasons for individual protection in Galicia's decision. “There is very clear evidence that the aggressiveness of the disease in smokers is much higher. It can multiply the risk of severe pneumonia by five to eight times ”. In addition, the smoker puts his hand to his mouth many more times than the non-smoker. It has been calculated between 200 and 300 times more a day, assures Fernández Villar. "The risk of contagion for the smoker is higher." Touching the mask to lower it each time you take a puff also increases the risk of contamination of the mask if you have previously touched a contaminated surface.

Other experts, such as Rafael M. Ortí, president of the Spanish Society of Preventive Medicine, Public Health and Hygiene, see the measure “coherent” if what is intended is to make COVID infections milder (because it will reduce the consumption of tobacco). But he claims to be "against the prohibitionist model against the educational model" and adds that "tobacco smoke does not transmit the coronavirus, just as there is not enough evidence to say that aerosols transmit it. It is transmitted by the drops that we expel when we speak, sing or cough ”. To reduce contagions, the measure does not work, he emphasizes, because those who want to skip the ban will do so anyway when they believe that they will not be fined.

María Cruz Minguillón, a CSIC researcher who specializes in fine particles, believes that the measure "will make smokers keep the mask on for as long as they would have removed it to smoke, which is positive." "Any other activity (drinking, eating) that requires removing the mask could also be prohibited," she says, adding that the transmission of the virus through the air "is proven." Fernández Villar assures that the transmission by aerosols is an open debate in which evidence is still lacking, but there is evidence in other coronaviruses such as MERS, and in that case it did occur.

“We know this is an unpopular measure for smokers. They will have to travel a few meters to separate themselves from their environment. And that in the world of hospitality it may not look good, because perhaps there are people who if they cannot smoke comfortably on the terrace will not go, but I believe that we are in an exceptional context, with a disease that we do not know how it will behave in autumn and winter, and any reasonable and well-argued measure that protects public health, we should applaud ”, said Fernández Villar.

Carlos A. Jiménez Ruiz, pulmonologist expert in smoking and president of Separ, has assured that his society applauds the measure. "It is very appropriate and will help control the pandemic," he said. "We would like the Government to take note of this and implement the measure at the national level." Separ in May recommended restricting smoking outdoors if distance from other people cannot be guaranteed.

Information about the coronavirus

- Here you can follow the last hour on the evolution of the pandemic

- This is how the coronavirus curve evolves in Spain and in each autonomy

- Search engine: The new normal by municipalities

- Questions and answers about the coronavirus

- Guide to action against the disease