Teenagers, young adults are 5-7 times more likely to get COVID-19

Young people are less likely to get severe COVID-19 cases, but health experts have long warned that vaping could make them more vulnerable.

Now scientists have data to do that.

New evidence from researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine found that teens and young adults who were armed were five to seven times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than their non-vaping peers.

The study, published Tuesday in the Journal of Adolescent Health, relied on research findings from 4,351 people between the ages of 13 and 24 in the US. It is the first to investigate the link between vaping and coronavirus vulnerability.

“Teens and young adults should know that if you use e-cigarettes, you are likely to be at immediate risk of COVID-19 because you damage your lungs,” said Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, Stanford professor of pediatrics and co-author of the study, said in a press release.

E-cigarettes and marijuana guns have increased in popularity in recent years, especially among college students and high schools. In 2018, 16% of students said they evaporated nicotine, compared to just 6% the year before, according to Pew Research Center. For 12th graders, the share went from 11% to 25%, and among 10th graders it jumped from 8% to 20%.

While the U.S. has reopened after its spring lockdowns, many officials have accused young adults of jumping on bars, parties, and beaches for spring break for the alarming rise in cases of coronavirus.

“Young people may believe that their age protects them from contracting the virus or that they will not experience any symptoms of COVID-19, but the data show that this is not true among those who vape,” said Shivani Mathur Gaiha , lead author of the study, in the press release. “This study tells us quite clearly that youth who use weapons or dual use [e-cigarettes and cigarettes] are at increased risk, and it is not just a small increase in risk; it is a large. “

People who smoked and smoked cigarettes were 7 times more likely to be COVID-19

Brendan McDermid / Reuters

Although older people are more likely to develop severe coronavirus symptoms such as pneumonia and shortness of breath, young people began to fill hospitals when the FS reopened.

The cases of young patients were also not necessarily resolved quickly: A CDC report published in late July found that nearly 20% of young, previously healthy coronavirus patients had not recovered after two to three weeks of illness.

The Stanford researchers behind the new study set out to investigate vaping as a potential risk factor among these young, otherwise healthy individuals.

They found a striking switch. Researchers who said they had used e-cigarettes at any given time in the past were five times more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19. A diagnosis was seven times more likely for people who both smoked and smoked cigarettes. Those who did both in the last 30 days had almost five times more likely symptoms.

“We were surprised,” Halpern-Felsher told NBC News. “We expect that we might see some relationship … but certainly not on the odds ratios and the meaning that we see it here.”

There are several possible explanations for the results. Halpern-Felsher said the way people use their weapons – sharing them with others, touching their mouths as the device’s mouths, and removing masks to smoke – may contribute to the spread of the virus. It is also possible that the aerosols that people inhale from e-cigarettes may carry the virus.

But many researchers think there is a direct link between vaping, lung damage, and vulnerability to the coronavirus.

Regular vaping can leave the lungs damaged and vulnerable

According to research from the University of California, San Francisco, one in three young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 is vulnerable to severe COVID-19 infection. To become vulnerable, a person must have at least one risk factor identified by the CDC – whether a chronic disease such as heart disease, diabetes, or asthma, or one major lifestyle factor: smoke.

Smoking was by far the most common risk factor for young people, the UCSF study found. That includes use of tobacco, e-cigarettes, and cigars. The researchers grouped these habits together because, just like smoking tobacco cigarettes, research has shown that vaping can damage the lungs.

One study of more than 32,000 Americans found that people who regularly took guns were more than 1.3 times more likely than non-vapers to develop lung disease, including asthma, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis. Tobacco smokers were 2.6 times more likely, and people who smoked and vape were 3.3 times more likely to develop lung disease than people who did not. And that was just during the three-year period of the study.

Because the coronavirus attacks the lungs, any vulnerability in that system can make a person susceptible to worse outcomes. It may also mean that a smaller amount of the virus is needed to infect the system. That seems to make vaping a risk factor like smoking.

Experts thought that would be the case even before they had the data to show it.

“From my point of view, meshing [together] all variables that insert things that are not air into your lungs, I would look at them all in the same category, “Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a pulmonologist and national spokesman for the American Lung Association, told Insider earlier.

He added: “If you get the infection and you have good, healthy lungs that are not combated every day with toxins, whether it is from inhaled marijuana or inhalable flammable cigarettes or inhaled electronic cigarettes, then you leave your lungs be at the best capacity they can to combat this infection. “