Here’s a rather disturbing article on BBC web site, which is rather long, but is worth reading in whole. Some scientists have found evidence that air pollution worsens the effects of the coronavirus. The lungs of people who are exposed to air pollution are more likely to experience more severe symptoms when infected with the virus. And microscopic particles of pollution may carry coronaviruses on their surfaces. Air pollution could partielly explain why certain geographic areas have higher incidences of infection or higher death rates.
Of course this is still in the early stages of investigation, but people should be aware of these possibilities.
I have included several quotes from the article, but there’s a lot more at the BBC link.
How air pollution exacerbates Covid-19
But when it comes to Covid-19, these risks to respiratory health are not the sum of their parts; researchers in the US are building a case that suggests air pollution has significantly worsened the Covid-19 outbreak and led to more deaths than if pollution-free skies were the norm. As well as predisposing the people who have lived with polluted air for decades, scientists have also suggested that air pollution particles may be acting as vehicles for viral transmission.
One recent study found that even small increases in fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, have had an outsized effect in the US. An increase of just 1 microgram per cubic metre corresponded to a 15% increase in Covid-19 deaths, according to the researchers, led by Xiao Wu and Rachel Nethery at the at the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
For comparison, the safe limit designated by the US’s Environmental Protection Agency is 12 micrograms PM2.5 per cubic metre, while the World Health Organization has a guideline figure of 10 micrograms per cubic metre as an annual mean. Parts of New York have annual PM2.5 levels consistently above this safe threshold. Researchers suggest that this could have played a part in the scale of New York State’s coronavirus outbreak, with deaths as of April by far the highest of any state.
These are not the first studies to highlight a substantial link between air pollution levels and deaths from viral diseases. A 2003 study found that patients with Sars, a respiratory virus closely related to Covid-19, were 84% more likely to die if they lived in areas with high levels of pollution.
In the US, some ethnic minorities are disproportionately exposed to air pollution, primarily caused by the consumption by white Americans, according to a 2018 study. Black and Hispanic people are typically exposed to 56% and 63% more PM2.5 pollution than they produce through consumption and daily activities. In sharp contrast, non-Hispanic white people are typically exposed to 17% less pollution than they produce. African Americans are also more likely than white Americans to have underlying health conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease, a disparity linked to a long legacy of social inequality.
This is not the time to be relaxing pollution standards.