Spain's health minister, Salvador Illa, stressed on Saturday that a law on tobacco will be more restrictive and that his ministry is already reviewing tax on tobacco products.
"We will not be relaxing our fight against smoking," said Illa, who explained that legislation contemplates prohibiting smoking in cars if there are children. The health ministry will be considering "new forms of smoking", i.e. vaping, which demand regulation. Scientific evidence, noted the minister, has shown that vaping is not "innocuous".
Speaking about coronavirus, Illa stated that there had been "no public health reason" for the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona having been cancelled. He didn't wish to speculate why it had been called off, but stressed that the ministry's aim is the health of all those who attend such events as well as the health of Spanish citizens. The system of early detection in Spain "is functioning perfectly". There have been just two positive cases (in La Gomera and Majorca) out of 38 suspected cases.