Sixty articles were found, thirty-seven of them were excluded after title, abstract or full text reading since they did not deal with alcohol consumption. Many of them were comments or editorials. Rumors on social media have initially proliferated on a preventive effect of alcohol, leading to dangerous behaviors across the world (Delirrad and Mohammadi, 2020; Mungmungpuntipantip and Wiwanitkit, 2020). Publicity about alcohol-containing hand sanitizing to protect the spread of the virus may have contributed to the erroneous belief that consuming alcohol might protect against COVID-19 (Chick, 2020). With the lockdown, some hospitals closed their alcohol-detox beds, and attendance at outpatient clinics was also curtailed. Patients with alcohol use disorder usually have a limited access to care, with less than one in five being adequately treated (Finlay and Gilmore, 2020). The COVID-19 crisis reinforces the need to adequately support individuals with alcohol use disorder.
