Lockdown may increase relapses for former smokers or tobacco-smoking behaviors, mental health outcomes and isolation, both inducing tobacco consumption as coping strategies for previous smokers. We found no study related to the side effects of the imposed withdrawal due to tobacco product ban in South Africa (Egbe and Ngobese, 2020). Individuals' harm perception related to the virus may induce changes in tobacco-use behaviors. In France, a large on-line survey reported an increase in tobacco use in 35% of participants. The main factors involved were female gender, having no partner, having and intermediate/low education level, and still working at workplace (Rolland et al., 2020). Last April, a US survey on 366 individuals reported interesting findings on tobacco cigarette (TC) and electronic cigarette (EC). Although almost half reported no change, COVID-19 prompted about a quarter of respondents to reduce their TC and EC use, and more than a third to increase their motivation to quit. Greater perceived risk was associated with increased motivation to quit both products, and over 20% of respondents reported a quit attempt to reduce risk of harm from
