Does the Air we Breathe Make us More Susceptible to COVID-19?
It’s not news that breathing polluted air is bad for your health. A 2015 report by the World Health Organisation showed that regular exposure to the most dangerous particulates, PM 2.5, causes as many as 3.7 million deaths worldwide. Pollutants are also believed to exacerbate other pre-existing conditions. A recent study by the British Medical Journal showed that even short-term exposure to small particulate pollutants increase hospitalization rates.
So my question is, if COVID-19 attacks the lungs, then what does this mean for those exposed to both high-levels of air pollutants and COVID-19?
A recent study by Harvard University within the United states showed that there is a correlation between exposure to small particulates and the COVID-19 fatality rate:
We found that an increase of only 1 μg/m3 in PM2.5 is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate.
To further explore this question on a global scale, I took data from Johns Hopkins University about global COVID-19 infections and deaths and determined the fatality rate for each country. I then compared that data to annual average air pollution data from The State of Global Air. The results are below.
As we can see, there is a little bit of a correlation starting to take shape. In the upper right quadrant, Spain, France and Italy are struggling with a high fatality rate as well as relatively high levels of both PM2.5 and PM10. China has the highest rates of both particulate types, but has managed to keep the fatality rate fairly low. But what about those countries that have similar pollution rates to Spain and France, but fairly low death rates? One theory is that they are still early in the outbreak and because it takes weeks for COVID-19 to take effect. It is hard to see if the data will follow. Testing rates and reporting for each country also vary, causing variations in the fatality rates. The clearest picture will come when the pandemic has run its course.
