New research suggests that air pollution might have a result on the number of individuals who pass away from COVID-19
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A team of researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark and the University of Siena in Italy has actually explored the possible link between air pollution and COVID-19
The study, published in Ecological Pollution, found a clear connection in between air contamination and death rates from COVID-19 in Italy. It likewise offers some reasons regarding why this might be the case.
The fast spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has meant that there has been little time for researchers to determine what impacts its speed of transmission and how lethal it can be.
Scientists have, nevertheless, already determined some factors that may affect the lethality of COVID-19 These elements consist of underlying health conditions, an individual’s age, and their sex
They have based this information on information inferred from previous viral respiratory diseases or from nations, such as Italy or China, that had early exposure to the virus.
The authors of the paper in Ecological Pollution found a possible connection that scientists had actually not previously resolved– a link between air pollution and the number of deaths from COVID-19
This connection became apparent when they looked at the circumstance in Italy.
Official figures from the Italian federal government show a considerable variation in the lethality of the virus, depending upon geographic areas.
According to these figures, northern areas of Italy, such as Lombardy or Emilia Romagna, saw a lethality rate of 12%. In the rest of the nation, the lethality rate was around 4.5%.
The authors keep in mind that there may be a series of explanations for these variations. The differences may be due to the way each area records deaths and infections or the fact that these two regions had relatively older populations.
The researchers recommend that air pollution is another possible aspect that could explain this variation.
As well as having a considerably greater death rate from COVID-19, Lombardy and Emilia Romagna likewise have a few of the worst air contamination levels, not simply in Italy, but throughout all of Europe.
The researchers drew on information from the NASA Aura satellite and the European Environm