A key question about the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and pneumonia and influenza deaths in general is the role of air pollution in the disease and deaths. Wuhan, China — the presumed source of the outbreak — had high levels of pollution resulting in mass protests in July of 2019 and the hard hit Lombardy region of Italy had some of the highest air pollution levels in Europe. There are many kinds of air pollution and how they interact with the lungs, immune system, and various infections is unclear. There is a long body of research that air pollution increases the risk and severity of pneumonia.
I have listed several popular and scientific articles on air pollution and the coronavirus or pneumonia in general below. I also included several articles from 2019 on the protests in Wuhan at the end.
Keep in mind when medical scientists and the press say “linked” or “associated” this usually mean a statistical correlation has been found. Correlation (even perfect correlation) does not prove causation.
Popular Articles
“New Research Links Air Pollution to Higher Coronavirus Death Rates” by Lisa Friedman, New York Times, April 7, 2020 (URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/climate/air-pollution-coronavirus-covid.html )
This New York Times article is about the Harvard research listed below in the Scientific Articles section.
Conclusions: A small increase in long-term exposure to PM2.5 leads to a large increase in COVID-19 death rate, with the magnitude of increase 20 times that observed for PM2.5 and all-cause mortality. The study results underscore the importance of continuing to enforce existing air pollution regulations to protect human health both during and after the COVID-19 crisis. The data and code are publicly available.
“Does air pollution make you more susceptible to coronavirus? California won’t like the answer” by Tony Barboza, March 21, 2020, LA Times
URL: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-21/coronavirus-air-pollution-health-risk
The answer is “probably yes.”
McMaster University. “Air pollution linked to hospitalizations for pneumonia in seniors.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 December 2009. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091223074703.htm>.
A relatively recent study at McMaster University in Canada linking air pollution to pneumonia.
Scientific Articles
Exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States (Updated April 5, 2020)
Xiao Wu MS, Rachel C. Nethery PhD, M. Benjamin Sabath MA, Danielle Braun PhD, Francesca Dominici PhD
All authors are part of the Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
Lead authors: Xiao Wu and Rachel C. Nethery
Corresponding and senior author: Francesca Dominici, PhD
URL: <https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm>
Conclusions: A small increase in long-term exposure to PM2.5 leads to a large increase in COVID-19 death rate, with the magnitude of increase 20 times that observed for PM2.5 and all-cause mortality. The study results underscore the importance of continuing to enforce existing air pollution regulations to protect human health both during and after the COVID-19 crisis. The data and code are publicly available.
Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2019 Mar; 16(3): 321–330. doi: 10.1513/AnnalsATS.201810-691OCPMCID: PMC6394122PMID: 30398895
Daniel P. Croft,1Wangjian Zhang,2Shao Lin,2Sally W. Thurston,3Philip K. Hopke,4,5Mauro Masiol,4,5Stefania Squizzato,4,5Edwin van Wijngaarden,4,6Mark J. Utell,1,6 and David Q. Rich1,4,6
Conclusions: Increased rates of culture-negative pneumonia and influenza were associated with increased PM2.5 concentrations during the previous week, which persisted despite reductions in PM2.5 from air quality policies and economic changes. Though unexplained, this temporal variation may reflect altered toxicity of different PM2.5 mixtures or increased pathogen virulence.
URL: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6394122/
Wuhan Air Pollution Protests
“China has made major progress on air pollution. Wuhan protests show there’s still a long way to go” by James Griffiths, CNN, July 10, 2020 (https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/10/asia/china-wuhan-pollution-problems-intl-hnk/index.html)
“Wuhan protests: Incinerator plan sparks mass unrest” Beijing Bureau BBC July 8, 2019 (https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48904350)
“First Hong Kong protested. Now it’s Wuhan, China. What makes it Beijing’s latest headache?” By Robyn Dixon July 5, 2019 LA Times (https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-china-protests-wuhan-environment-20190704-story.html)
(C) 2020 by John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
About Me
John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).