Air pollution and COVID-19 are both well known in causing or exacerbating respiratory distress, and a new analysis suggests that the two factors may interact.
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As part of a series of reports from the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, researchers have found that regions in the Netherlands with higher air pollution have greater numbers of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. However, they stress that the findings do not prove a causal relationship.
The Netherlands, home to more than 17 million people, has experienced more than 50,000 cases of COVID-19. The study compared air quality readings from 355 municipalities in the country, including data on nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and fine particulate matter. The team found that areas that had even slightly higher pollutant levels tended to have more cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. The authors calculated that if the most polluted areas, which measured a 12.3 g/m3 concentration of fine particulate matter, was halved, making it comparable to the 6.9 g/m3 concentration of the least polluted regions, our results suggest this would lead to 82 fewer disease cases, 24 fewer hospital admissions and 19 fewer deaths, purely as a result of the change in pollution, they write for The Conversation.
