Alcohol’s Healthcare Burden during COVID‐19 Pandemic

Despite the current importance of protecting health‐care services, most governments have deemed alcohol sales to be as essential as food, fuel and pharmaceuticals. In many countries, alcohol is now more readily available and affordable than ever before, a situation global alcohol producers benefit from and have helped engineer.
To protect frontline healthcare services and public health more generally, it is essential that modest, evidence‐based restrictions on alcohol prices, availability and marketing are introduced. In particular, increases in excise taxation…