Air pollution may affect COVID-19 lethality
New research suggests that air pollution may impact the number of people who die from COVID-19.
While the rapid spread has affected scientist’s ability to work out the factors that affect the speed of transmission, they have identified some factors that affect the lethality of COVID-19. This includes health conditions, a person’s age, and their sex.
This is based on information gathered during the early exposures to the virus in China and Italy. With this data they found a possible correlation that scientists hadn’t previously linked between air pollution and the number of deaths from COVID-19.
It was in Italy where the data is most apparent based on figures released from the Italian government that showed a huge variation in the virus’s lethality in certain areas.
According to these figures, northern regions of Italy, such as Lombardy and Emilia Romagna, saw a lethality rate of 12%. The rest of the country meanwhile had a lethality of around 4.5%.
While scientists say there could be a range of explanations for such variations, Lombardy and Emilia Romagna have the worst level of worst air pollution across all of Europe, according to data gathered by NAS Aura satellite and the European Environment Agency’s Air Quality Index.
The authors of this report suggest that as well as being major centres for industrial production, which causes air pollution, the authors note that the geographic and climatic conditions of Northern Italy exacerbate air pollution, leading to COVID-19 stagnating there than in other parts of the country.
It’s time to cut air pollution
Air pollution is a danger to us all, not only now but also for our future generations. Its impact affects our health and with the dangers surrounding the spread of COVID-19, it’s clear we cannot continue to live with such high levels of pollution. Together we can help cut down the level of pollution in the air by making small changes in our lives.
In our homes and in public spaces, we can switch away from dangerous petrol-powered garden tools which continue to pollute our air. That is why a team of experts have developed the EGO Power+, a range of cordless garden tools which replaces petrol power with battery power.
To show our continued commitment to sustainability, we recently published The Report to highlight the dangers of the continuous use of petrol-powered garden tools. As part of this, we discovered that 48% of respondents are concerned about air pollution where they live.
Discover more about our work and take up the challenge by downloading The Report here: https://www.challenge2025.eu/thereport/.