Xu, Lei. (2022, January 1). “Short-term air pollution exposure and COVID-19 infection in the United States.” Environmental Pollution, ScienceDirect. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749121019515
In this article, they created a nationwide study of air pollution to analyze the correlation of short-term air pollution and the Covid-19 virus cases. Within a four month span, they found 554 counties with PM2.5 and 670 counties for ozone (O3) out of 806 counties studied. With this, the short term exposure of PM2.5 and O3 and the relationship with Covid-19 cases was studied. They found that with every 10 μg/m3 increase in mean pollution concentration, the number of daily Covid-19 cases increased by 9.41% for PM2.5 and 2.42% for O3. This means that the exposure to these pollutants, especially PM2.5 will increase the spread of the Covid-19 virus worldwide.
This is very concerning for the sake of our future and humanity in general. While our air pollution is nowhere near coming to an end, we are merely making our living environments on this planet worse and worse. On top of that, as new viruses and Covid-19 variants come out, the pollutants and emissions within our air help these viruses spread even quicker. We are essentially fueling these viruses to become stronger and stronger, which in the end, hurts us as humans. This also makes me wonder about PM2.5 because we have not gone over that pollutant as much, since it is so obviously harmful.
I did not know this prior to reading your post! Thinking about it now, it is incredibly important how we view air pollution not only as a harm to our environment and a catalyst for climate change, but also as a current public health issue. Air pollution is irretrievably connected to health and respiratory issues, but connecting it to something so current and important to today’s health issues is essential. Do you think it is possible to reduce pollution in a short time that is conducive to decreasing COVID risk?
Very interesting data. I agree with you that we are hurting ourself as a species increasing air pollution. I didn’t know that air pollution actually causes viruses to spread quicker! What do you think is the best solution to reducing air pollution?