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During a year when school districts faced unprecedented academic, fiscal and operational stress, the nation鈥檚 pediatricians began sounding an additional alarm: a troubling vaping epidemic among teens.

The logistics of dealing with remote learning and socially distanced classroom spacing during the pandemic often overshadowed the escalating use of e-cigarettes and the risks they pose to young people who contract the virus. Early on, Boston鈥檚 MassGeneral Hospital for Children and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey jointly issued a public health advisory with a blunt warning: 鈥淪moking and vaping may increase the spread of COVID-19.鈥�

Similarly, the Cleveland Clinic emerged as one of the first health care providers to draw a connection between the virus and vaping 鈥� noting that secondhand vapor could threaten teens鈥� health. Later, a study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found a COVID diagnosis was five times more likely among users of e-cigarettes.