TOLEDO, Ohio — There have been a lot of new normals that have came about during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as fewer teens are picking up a vape pen.
Almost 2 million high school and middle school students aren't vaping.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has released a new report showing over the last year, teen vaping has decreased.
Chief Health Officer at Mercy Health, Dr. James Tita said seeing the falling numbers is good news, but we are not out of the woods yet.
"There are still 3.6 million teenagers that are vaping and that's a huge public health problem. But at least things are moving in the right direction," Tita said.
According to the CDC's report in 2019, 4.1 million high school students reported e-cigarette users nationwide and 1.2 million reported in middle school.
This year, those number are down to 3 million reported users in high school and a little more than half a million in middle school.
Tita said flavored cartridges is one of the large reasons for youth vaping.
"About 80% teenage vapers use the flavored products and in February the FDA banned the use of flavors in the e-cigarette cartridges," Tita said.
He believes that ban is not the sole reason for seeing the decrease. In a year that's been anything but normal, he said the COVID-19 pandemic and a majority of schools not attending five days in school has an impact too.