NORTH BETHESDA, MD – In 2018, opioid overdoses claimed about 47,000 American lives. Last year, federal authorities reported that 5.4 million middle and high school students vaped. And just two months ago, about 2,800 cases of vaping-associated lung injuries resulted in hospitalizations; 68 people died.
Until mid-March, these numbers commanded attention. But as the coronavirus death toll climbs and the economic costs of attempting to control its spread wreak havoc, the public health focus is now dramatically different.
In the background, though, these other issues — the opioid epidemic and vaping crisis — persist in heaping complications on an overwhelmed public health system.
It is creating a distinctly American problem, said Dr. Nora Volkow, who heads the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Volkow spoke with Kaiser Health News about the emerging science around COVID-19’s relationship to vaping and to opioid use disorder, as well as how these underlying epidemics could increase people’s risks. Her remarks have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: We’ve already been experiencing two epidemics at once — vaping and the opioid crisis — and now we’re in the midst of a third. Does that change the nature of addressing the coronavirus in the United States?
It makes a different kind of situation than we see abroad. It forces us as a country to be urgently multitasking, to focus on the urgent needs of COVID while not ignoring the other epidemics devastating America. That’s certainly challenging.
Q: What is the evidence around the relationship between vaping and the coronavirus?
Because of the recency, there’s no data to show if there are differences in outcomes between people who vape and people who do not vape. There’s no reported scientific evidence. We will start seeing it.
We know from all the cases of acute lung injury that vaping, particularly certain combinations of chemicals that were related to vaping of THC, actually led to death. The cause of death was pulmonary dysfunction. We know from animal experiments that vaping itself — not even giving any drugs with it — can produce inflammatory changes in the lung.
We already know for COVID that, with comorbid conditions — particularly those that affect the lungs, the heart, the immune system — [patients] are more likely to have negative outcomes.
One can predict an association. In the meantime, because of the data that already exist, we should be very cautious. The prudent thing is to strongly advise individuals who are vaping to stop.
Q: Young people so far appear to have lower risks of COVID complications. Does vaping change that?
We know there have been fatalities among young people. One very important area of research is to try to understand the specific vulnerabilities among young people.
Why would you want to risk it when you already know vaping produces inflammatory changes in the lungs? We know in medicine, a tissue that has suffered harm is more vulnerable.
The big centers where you are observing the rise in COVID-19 cases, that’s where you are more likely to see the comorbidity of vaping.
It’s young people that are mostly vaping, but also older people, many of whom otherwise would be smoking tobacco. [Smoking] also raises the risk. Even though the samples have not been large enough, overall, smokers have done worse than nonsmokers when they have COVID.
Q: Let’s talk about opioid use disorder. What kind of comorbidities are we starting to see between opioid use disorder and COVID-19?
People who have opioid use disorder are also likely to be smokers. Smoking itself increases harm to your lungs.
We do know that opioids actually are immunosuppressants. This has been extensively studied. Nicotine also can disrupt immunity and actually impair the capacity of the cell to respond to viral infections.
One of the things opioids do is they depress your respiration. If it’s severe enough, they stop breathing. That’s what leads to death.
Whether you overdose or not, when you are taking opioids, the frequency of your breathing is down, and the oxygen in your blood tends to be lower.
The [COVID] infection targets the respiratory tissues in the lungs. It interferes with the capacity to transfer oxygen into the blood.
If you get COVID and you are taking opioids, the physiological consequences are going to be much worse. You’re not only going to have the effects of the virus itself, but you’ll have the depressive effects of opioids in the respiratory system [and] in the brain that lead to much less circulation in the lungs.
Q: What about other supports for people in recovery?
Community support systems like syringe exchange programs are closing. Methadone clinics are closing. If they’re not closing, they’re unable to process the same number of patients — because the staff is getting sick or the place where the methadone clinic was does not allow for so many people. Public transportation is not available for people to attend their methadone clinics.
We’re also hearing from our investigators they have observed a significant reduction in the capacity of the health care system to initiate people on medication for opioid use disorder — especially buprenorphine. Many of the buprenorphine initiations were done in health care facilities that are saturated with COVID.
Q: What’s happening to address those problems?
If in the past, if you were a physician or a nurse practitioner and you wanted to initiate someone on buprenorphine, the laws were that you needed to see that person physically. That’s changed. It’s now possible you can initiate someone on buprenorphine through telehealth. That’s incredibly valuable.
There’s extended reimbursement for telehealth, which expands access to treatment. There are also apps that have been created that provide individuals who have addiction [access] to mentors or coaches, as well as access to therapies and group therapies.
That is one of the aspects that has actually been accelerated by the COVID crisis. These may facilitate treatment into the future, even when COVID’s no longer there.
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