There were a number of hospitalizations and a few deaths in the late summer/fall of 2019 across the US attributed to e-cig vaping cartridges. The symptoms appeared a lot like covid; shortness of breath, scarred lungs, pneumonia. A medium sized media scare campaign lead to an FDA emergency ban on flavored vape juices. The culprit allegedly turned out to be Vitamin E acetate added to some black market THC marijuana cartridges, but the timing and similarity to covid is pretty eerie in hindsight.