With fewer children using e-cigarettes during the pandemic, parents may have found a silver lining in the pandemic cloud. When the pandemic started over a year ago, parents were unsure what the future would look like for their children. They quickly learned that it would involve a lot of remote learning, canceled events and parties, and children who were struggling with their mental health. In a world where it seems like it will never end, parents were searching for a silver lining. Anything that was slightly positive to come out of this pandemic.
According to US News and Medical Xpress, there may be one. It turns out that during the pandemic, fewer children were using e-cigarettes than normal. E-cigarettes were increasingly becoming a trend among youth, and some parents struggled with how to get their children to put them down.
When compared to the quarter before, vaping rates had actually fallen among those aged 15 to 20. This period was between March 14th and June 29th, 2020. This was when the world was in stay-at-home orders and everyone was living life in quarantine. This information came from a recent survey that was done on more than 5,700 teens and young adults.
The reason for this drop was likely due to the lack of access that youth had to these products, according to the researchers. The shops that sold these products were closed or had very limited hours. Hours when children were in school. There were also no after-school parties or hang-outs to attend where children could share or exchange products with their friends.
Jennifer Krelsake was the study author, and she attributed all of these actions as to why they saw such a decline in numbers. This may seem like a good thing, but there is some concern going forward.
The concern is that as vaccines for the virus start rolling out, the country is slowly starting to reopen and return to some resemblance of normal. This has led experts to be concerned that they will start to see these numbers climb back up as stores reopen and friends start hanging out together again. They have had to come up with plans on how to keep this number low. Their primary “battle plan” right now is to increase public education and support in the community. They want to look at how they can continue to restrict the access youth have to these products. It is also prompting conversations between parents and children about the possible harm of these e-cigarettes.
Sources: US News, Medical Xpress