Like many parents, LeeAnn is terrified her son will catch Covid-19. She lives in New York, near the nation’s coronavirus epicenter, but that isn’t the only issue that’s worrying her. LeeAnn is especially concerned because her teenager vapes: “This virus attacks the lungs and his lungs are most likely compromised due to vaping!!!!!!” she wrote via Facebook messenger. (WIRED is only using LeeAnn’s first name to protect her family’s privacy.)
While serious coronavirus infections are more likely in older populations, teenagers and kids aren’t immune to the virus. Now, some parents and public health experts are worried that vaping mixed with coronavirus could have terrible consequences. “The anxiety level is at an 11 out of 10 about vaping and smoking right now from parents,” says Jonathan Winickoff, a pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital who studies tobacco use among children. “No parent wants to see their child be placed in a higher risk category.”
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Even cheerleading star and social media celebrity Gabi Butler has exhorted her 1.2 million Instagram followers to quit in a video ad for the Texas Department of State Health Services’ #VapesDown campaign, in which she warns about the toxic ingredients in many vapes. “With everything going on with the coronavirus, you guys want your lungs to be nice and healthy,” she says in the video.
Meredith Berkman and Dorian Fuhrman, who run the advocacy group Parents Against Vaping e-cigarettes (PAVe), say they are getting lots of messages from parents even more worried about their kids’ vaping habits now during the pandemic. “Trying to get my 14 year old to quit – doesn’t want to,” wrote one parent on the group’s Facebook page. “She says she needs it to help her with stress. It’s killing me.” Another parent messaged the group asking for strategies to help her husband and her teenager quit. She wrote that Covid-19 is motivating her to “get them off this crap.”
Not only are parents worried about potential health risks, but, as more families shelter in place together, more parents are finding out about their teens’ vaping habits. Berkman says that PAVe advocates have been hearing anecdotal stories of parents discovering their kids are more dependent on flavored e-cigarettes than they realized. “Now that everyone is at home together, you can’t hide that behavior anymore,” Fuhrman adds.
Carol Green, president-elect of the California State Parent Teacher Association, says she’s heard a different set of concerns from parents who are still working essential jobs at grocery stores, hospitals, and elsewhere. For these families with working parents and no school, there’s no adult supervision for their kids. “Those parents are really worried about what their kids are doing at home,” she says.
This isn’t the first—or even the greatest—panic over vaping
