By Kristen Jordan ShamusDetroit Free Press

DETROIT Gov. Gretchen Whitmer spoke directly to young Michiganders on Monday as she announced an executive order requiring people to stay home to avoid spreading novel coronavirus.

Young people, Im talking to you now, Whitmer said. Youre not immune from this. You can get this virus. You can carry this without even knowing it and be unknowingly exposing others to it.

Theres been this misperception that if youre young, youre not susceptible to COVID-19. The fact of the matter is in America, we are seeing severe consequences in our younger people in ways that they havent seen it in other parts of the world.

She speculated that vaping might be contributing to the 41% of people ages 20-49 in Michigan who have contracted the virus, according to data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Despite a spate of vaping-related lung injuries nationally in 2019, the habit is popular among young people.

Ive talked to more than one physician who has observed, and perhaps theres too little science to know precisely if this is whats going on, but vaping is a lot more popular in the United States than it is elsewhere, Whitmer said. And that compromises your respiratory system and makes you more susceptible to respiratory illness.

Dr. Samuel Allen, a pulmonologist at Beaumont Health, told the Free Press that its too soon to say what role vaping is playing in the global coronavirus pandemic, which, as of Monday night, had infected about 375,000 people and killed at least 16,400, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Global Case Tracker.

Theres really no scientific evidence that links the two, he said. First of all, its because vaping itself is relatively still in its infancy. So is it plausible as a kind of an interesting observation? Yeah. But as far as a scientific link, theres none.

But, Allen said, a person who has lung injury from vaping probably would be more likely to be severely sickened by COVID-19 than someone without vaping-related lung injury, just as a cigarette smoker, someone with chronic lung disease, diabetes, immune suppression or heart disease would.

Dr. Meilan Han, a pulmonary specialist at Michigan Medicine and professor at the University of Michigan, said that while most of the research about the novel coronavirus suggests older people are more likely to be hospitalized and die of the disease, we certainly do know that there are young people in the United States that clearly are experiencing severe disease and are on ventilators.

And so people have been hypothesizing as to what some of the risk factors might be. We dont have a lot of published data from the U.S., so were looking to the little bits of published data that are coming out of China. What theyre seeing is that one of the risk factors does appear to be smoking.

One report suggests that smokers have a 14-times higher risk of severe illness with a COVID-19 infection than nonsmokers, she said.

We dont have a lot of data on vaping right now, but there is reason to potentially hypothesize that things that cause lung inflammation like smoking, like vaping might increase the risk for more severe disease, she said.

Dr. Arnold Monto, professor of epidemiology and global public health at the University of Michigan, said any connection to vaping and the rate of young people with severe disease from COVID-19 is speculation.

Theres vaping, he said. Young people have gotten sick. Maybe its vaping, but we dont have a link. What we would want from an epidemiologic standpoint is to have the histories of those who became sick and see whether they vaped. But theres no data that I know of, so its pure speculation.

Whitmers stay home, stay safe order also addressed the potential that the number of novel coronavirus cases could overwhelm the health care system as it spreads exponentially through the state.

The death count in Michigan was up to 15 Monday afternoon, and the states total confirmed case count reached 1,328. Whitmer predicted the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases could rise fivefold more over the next week.

We have roughly 10 million people in our state, she said. There is a model that anticipates and if we stay on our current trajectory, just like Italy, over 70% of our people can get infected with COVID-19.

Of that 7 million people projected, about a million of them would need to be hospitalized. Let me give you a little perspective here. We have about 25,000 acute care beds in Michigan. Without additional aggressive measures soon, our hospitals will be overwhelmed. And we dont currently have enough beds, masks, gowns and ventilators.

But if we all do our part and simply stay home, we have a shot at helping our health care system meet our needs. Because this disease cant spread person-to-person if were not out there.

The model Whitmer referenced is a worst-case scenario, Monto said.

I think you have to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best, he said, adding that how Michigan _ and the country fares _ in the days and weeks ahead depends on several factors.

It all depends on how many people have already been sheltering in place as much as they could, Monto said, and how many heed the governors warning and take her order seriously going forward.

A lot of this is dependent on human behavior and those who like to go out and party are still going to go out and party, he said. Short-term, the less contact we have with others who might be infected is the best policy.

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