PONE-D-22-09801“Are they trying to control us people?”: News media coverage of COVID-19 lockdown tobacco sales ban in South AfricaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Egbe,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 16 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Michael Cummings, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

2. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. 

When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

3. Thank you for stating the following in the Funding Section of your manuscript: 

"COE and SPN’s time were supported by the South African Medical Research Council. EC and HB’s time was supported by the University of Nevada, Reno."

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. 

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: 

"COE and SPN’s time were supported by the South African Medical Research Council. EC and HB’s time was supported by the University of Nevada, Reno."

Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This is an important topic for two reasons: a once in a century pandemic, and a total ban on tobacco (and alcohol) represent opportunities to study the effects. Authors however have not provided a clear objective for the study. Can it be assumed that it is to assess how the media represented views on the pros and cons of a ban?

The methods are not well described. What is the universe of media considered? Seems only selected print media? What about information originating in or spread via social media (which is today the main source for information in South Africa with many studies showing low readership of traditional print media). Were efforts made to classify the stories in terms of their prominence in the publication (length, position, editorial as examples known this impacts on what is read). Was any data collected on readership by source in terms of numbers, demographics. geography? It is unclear why data were only collected from March 26 till August 17. Starting at least earlier in March and continuing for a few months would have provided a fuller sense of community and public health responses. For example, were there calls for cessation post the ban? Additional details about what was not banned are missing. Were NRTs easily available for example?

In the introduction, the fact that bans were placed on tobacco and alcohol is important context.

The results are difficult to interpret (see comments under methods). A few prominently placed articles which reach millions of people should be given greater weight then small stories in obscure publications. The analysis does not try to address this issue which is standard in analyses of media reach and impact. UCT School of Marketing or the Pretoria School of Business could have helped with this.

Conclusions vary between the abstract and the text. The main conclusion in the abstract being that media missed the opportunities to discuss smoking cessation during the pandemic (presumably they mean during the lockdown months as no data is presented for later periods.) This is not supported by any data provided nor is it discussed in the text of the conclusions where the focus is on industry interference and countering their statements.

The UCT School of Economics Tobacco Control program (funded by Gates, WHO, CRUK and others) completed several major reports during this period and after that paint a data based picture of what really happened: illicit trade soared, a new criminal class was established, billions of Rands were lost in from excise tax revenue; most smokers found ways to obtain cigarettes albeit counterfeit, illegal and illicit brands. Similar outcomes were reported by others re the alcohol ban. Further, social media erupted with stories of the above, advise re how to circumvent the bans, and concerns re revenue losses to small shopowners, spaza owners and others.

The authors are probably correct that more should have been done re promoting cessation (and harm reduction). UCT researchers suggest that the desire to cut consumption could have been achieved by a large increase in excise taxes supported by stronger controls on illicit trade.

Given the importance of this topic from a global policy perspective, research needs to be well designed and presented in ways that include all relevant issues. This paper does not do so,

Reviewer #2: This is a well written and presented manuscript. Its timely and raises an important topic that deserves more attention such as presented here. The paper could be strengthened by mentioning a bit more about harm reduction and other misinformation resulting in a further lost opportunity to speed up a move away from much more deadly combusted tobacco products. Moreover there is increasing research, carefully done, that suggests nicotine may actually be protective against covid-19 but smokers have also been misinformed about that .. see for example: https://www.qeios.com/read/UJR2AW.15 ... and there are newer recent studies reaffirming this finding.

Misinformation, especially errors of omission of important information also relates to the notion of harm reduced products and the missed opportunity to save lives due to the substantially less relative harms of non combusted nicotine delivery be it from Pharmacological nicotine in the form of Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) as well as smokeless products such as e-cigarettes or smokeless tobacco relative to combusted toxic smoke inhalation but not nicotine. This is well covered in the Public Health England recent update, the gold standard Cochrane Collaborative reviews that e-cigarettes can help more smokers stop using combusted products than NRTs. and reach more smokers to save more lives.

Thus the main point or two to be added involves misleading press coverage to is detrimental to consumer decision making -- that is driven by reporters failure to check the strongest science (ie do their homework) before conveying misleading information to the public and especially by errors of omission regarding providing smokers with accurate information about the RELATIVE HARMS of toxic smoke from combustion compared with much less harms of nicotine without smoke as well as protective effects of nicotine on COVID-19 (or at least that the jury is out and its not clear smoking is directly causal in severity of Covid19 or even risk fo getting Covid19. again see recent articles that support the main conclusion of this review: https://www.qeios.com/read/UJR2AW.15

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PONE-D-22-09801R1“Are they trying to control us people?”: News media coverage of COVID-19 lockdown tobacco sales ban in South AfricaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Egbe,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

​​Your manuscript has been reassessed by one reviewer from the previous round, whose reports can be found below. Whilst the manuscript has improved significantly, there remains a yet to resolved issue about the harm reduction continuum which should be addressed before your manuscript is suitable for publication.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 29 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.

• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Katrien Janin

Staff Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

********** 

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

********** 

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

********** 

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

********** 

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: No

********** 

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: I do not feel the most important comment about the harm reduction continuum and use of much less harmful non combusted consumer products (not just NRT) was addressed in the revision. at the very least a coup[le sentences in support of harm reduction and stronger citing of balanced literature rather than the selective use of very weak science and misleading statements by Dr Standton Glants and co authors are NOT a good reason to exclude some framing of the potential for non combusted nictine delivery - along the harm reduction continuum --to be used as a way to make combusted smoking pbsolete more rapidly and pragmatically. This is not beyond the scope of this paper at all and should be included. Moreover the authors seem to themselves adhere to the misinformation promulgated by the weakest science against e-cigarettes (vaped nicotine) and selectively ignore the much stronger scientific evidence in support of harm reduction as a pragmatic solution to the obvious failure of different attempt at total nicotin e prohibition (an extremist view that may be both unrealistic and unreachable -- and totally relevant to the main focus of this paper.

The UK approach and Public Health England's excellent reviews and updates as well as stronger balances science from the USA cannot simply be dismissed as beyond the scope of this paper -- indeed that is the main GOAL of the public health approach at the population level -- elimination of the largely preventable deaths and massive chonic disease burdens of decades of COMBUSTED SMOKE INHALATION and toxins in burned tobacco and not of nicotine when delivered in non-combusted but appealing forms other than medicinal NRT where there is clear evidence of much lower levels and much fewer types of toxins in e-cigarette vapor , and in use of Swedish type snus and newer nicotine pouches and so forth. There is ample evidence of dramatic reductions in biomarkers of harm especially major cancer bio-makers such as from FDAs own PATH analysis of toxins in e-cigarette users blood versus combusted users . the major USA Institute of Medicine, the FDAs own 2017 strategy for managing nicotine (Gottlieb and Zeller ); several well done independent reviews ; many of the best studies of exposure and many critical comments about the limitations of poorly done studies that are often used to mislead. Including one study by Glantz et al -- on e-cigarettes and heart attacks --that had to be and was withdrawn by the journal (Am Heart Assn) and others that should have been withdrawn.

********** 

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PONE-D-22-09801R2“Are they trying to control us people?”: News media coverage of COVID-19 lockdown tobacco sales ban in South AfricaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Egbe,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 19 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Ali B. Mahmoud, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: While the added sentence is somewhat responsive about the harm continuum and electronic or non combusted nicotine products -- the authors continue to state that all the concern about exempting electronic cigarettes is industry misinformation aboyt harm reduction . Thus it does not adequately address the issue that scientific opinion also provides scientific support for harm reduction and the substitution of much less harmful nicotine products cigarettes can save lives. The sentence could be acceptable - although its minimal - if several credible references in support of the science to date were cited , perhaps the least controversial of these are the following two citations (Public Health England latest scientific update and the very conservative review by 15 presidents of the worlds leading research society on nicotine and tobacco (SRNT). (The issue of Glantz and a personal vendetta is a distraction from the authors addressing adequately the real issue in their discussion and their own perhaps unintended bias in their interpretations of their own results -- as all evil industry related ). The issue is to take the highest ground of scientific evidence about harm reduced products and call for media accuracy based on science not industry past behavior ( and to indicate that despite the obvious and despicable industry tactics in general - which I agree with -- in terms of the industry being opposed to the entire ban etc, BUT as the authors stated -- one needs more press coverage with accurate science as well to counter industry tactics that do not protect public health but profits and their more massive budgets as the authors state. BUT again there IS ALSO scientific evidence (NOT ALL Industry misinformation) about the value and evidence in support of exempting electronic cigarettes / non combustible nicotine -- and correct misinformation in the media about a harm continuum of products -- so as to accelerate e and informed consumer decision making and government policy -- to save more smokers lives more quickly . So that can be clarified a bit mor strongly in the added sentence AND alos please ADD the two references below. These are from most credible sources and a full review of all the evidence to date . They qualify the weak and still therefore misleading added sentence from the authors -- one that suggests there are equal pro and con arguments for and against e-cigarettes (not a continuum of harm) even from a science point of view. This is not true ( i.e. thus by implication e-cigs are not less harmful and that any harm reduction claim is still to be ignored as its all part of an industry misinformation campaign. Harm reduction is not ONLY an industry plot, it is more and more strongly scientifically supported. I agree there was not enough in depth coverage of e-cigarettes as stated in the revision , but it does not clarify the core issue to ensure accurate media coverage of the harm continuum and reduced harm products to save lives. The authors can do better at composing a few sentences than their current added sentence.

1. Balancing Consideration of the Risks

and Benefits of E-Cigarettes. David J. K. Balfour, DSc, Neal L. Benowitz, MD, Suzanne M. Colby, PhD, Dorothy K. Hatsukami, PhD, Harry A. Lando, PhD,

Scott J. Leischow, PhD, Caryn Lerman, PhD, Robin J. Mermelstein, PhD, Raymond Niaura, PhD, Kenneth A. Perkins, PhD, Ovide F. Pomerleau, PhD, Nancy A. Rigotti, MD, Gary E. Swan, PhD, Kenneth E. Warner, PhD, and Robert West, PhD.

Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print

August 2021:e1–e12. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306416)

2. McNeill A, Brose LS, Calder R, Simonavicius E,

Robson D. Vaping in England: An Evidence Update

Including Vaping for Smoking Cessation, February

2021. A Report Commissioned by Public Health

England. Public Health England. 2021. Available

at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/

government/uploads/system/uploads/

attachment_data/file/962221/Vaping_in_

England_evidence_update_February_2021.pdf.

Accessed March 6, 2021.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

“Are they trying to control us people?”: News media coverage of COVID-19 lockdown tobacco sales ban in South Africa

PONE-D-22-09801R3

Dear Dr. Egbe,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Al B. Mamod, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: