How Urban Air Pollution Can Make Covid-19 More Deadly?

corona hotspot restricted area and a globe with a mask

Urban air pollution is linked with Covid-19.In 2019, novel infectious coronavirus appeared as an emergent and deadly respiratory disease caused by SARS coronavirus 2 (Onder et al., 2020). It was firstly identified in Wuhan, China and gradually spread all around the globe. According to World meter report, around 56,727,696 cases have been reported and 1,357,809 have died till yet. Considering these numbers, 2.39% appears to be the case-fatality rate all around the world. Various studies on etiology of covid-19 have been conducted since outbreak, however, research on environmental factors contributing to diversity in severity of cases is still lacking (Liang et al., 2020). 

“Urban Air Pollution”

In recent past, Weiss et al. (2004), Lin et al. (2006), Heymann et al. (2005) and Qu et al. (2020) have put forward the studies on impacts of environmental and social factors on infectious diseases such as SARS. One among the factor is the “Urban Air Pollution” that is reported to intensify the vulnerability of serious outcomes of outbreak. Morbidity and mortality due to air pollution is already well understood (Liu et al., 2019; Anenberg et al., 2018; Alhanti et al., 2016). This air pollution is caused by, cars, power plants, refineries, industries, chemical plants etc. and are the most common sources of in urban areas, according to USEPA. Since the boost of industrialization, air pollutant prevalence has jumped to a next level. Criteria pollutants such as Sulphur dioxide (SO2), soot, lead (Pb), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and other particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) increased in uncontrolled manner causing environmental deterioration and health threats (Fenger, 1999). These air pollutants standard is being used now for research when covid-19 death toll risen. Two death outcomes are needed to be measured, Case-Fatality Rate– number of deaths among covid-19 patients and Mortality Rate– number of covid-19 deaths in the total population.

Ozone (O3), particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) and nitrogen oxides (NOx)

In these times of Coronavirus outbreak, ozone (O3), particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) are of great concern due to their capability to cause respiratory, cardiovascular and immune system dysfunctioning (Ciencewicki et al., 2007; Ayyagari et al., 2007; Liang et al., 2018; Liang et al., 2019; Golan et al., 2018). This is of key interest now that how these pollutants affect the disease onset and case-fatality rate of covid-19.

Pollutants and SARS case-fatality rate

During this covid-19 outbreak, a close correlation has been found between pollutants and SARS case-fatality rate (Cui et al., 2003). Yongjian et al. (2020) demonstrated a temporal increase in Covid-19 cases because of varying air quality for short duration.  Liang et al., (2020) explained that nitrogen oxides have positive correlation with case-fatality rate of SARS Covid-19, independent of PM2.5 and ozone, making long-term urban air pollution to be a risk factor in times of Covid-19. In a research conducted by Wu et al., (2020), they concluded the results via ecological regression analysis and found that particulate matter (PM2.5) is closely associated with higher county-level covid-19 cases.

Urban air pollutants

Urban air pollutants not only directly affect the health of individuals, but they also serve as vectors for virus transmission. Coccia et al. (2020) explained that PM2.5 are more involved in virus transmission as compared to man to man transmission. These pollutants are capable to agglomerate with the virus. Setti et al., (2020) suggested that exhaled droplets get fused with PM, making them more persistent in atmosphere due to the decline in diffusion coefficient. This leads to inhalation of virus containing particulate matter (PM 2.5) making the virus containing droplets more contagious.

National Aeronautics and Space Administrations (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA)

There are several countries like China, Italy, England, France, Czech Republic, Poland, United States of America and Brazil where air pollution data has been estimated and linked with disease onset. According to National Aeronautics and Space Administrations (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA), no reduction in pollution has been observed in Northern China, however, Southern parts showed a considerable drop in pollution during Covid-19. Same has been identified in Northern Italy during lockdown. In these times, Conticini et al., (2020) found a correlation between death caused by covid-19 and high pollution level. England and France showed the same trend of correlation between mortality rate and pollutant level (Travaglio et al., 2020). Similar study conducted by Wu et al. (2020) in USA suggested that increase of 1 μg/m3 of PM2.5 causes the 15% rise in covid-19 mortality rate. And one-unit increase in PM10 cause an increase of 8% in covid-19 cases (Travaglio et al., 2020).

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air published

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air published a report considering this air pollution and human health in times of Covid-19, that concluded that:

People exposed to high level of pollutants have vulnerable natural defense systems against air borne diseases and so thus against SARS Covid-19.

In many chronic illnesses, air pollution serves to be a vital risk factor to make people seriously ill to be treated in ICU or it may lead to their death due to covid-19.

People with vulnerable respiratory tract systems are at more risk to be hospitalized or die off.

A socio-environmental synthesis approach

In addition to these criteria pollutants (sulphur dioxide, SO2; nitrogen oxides, NOx and particulate matter, PM2.5 and PM10), hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) are of great concern too. According to EPA, HAPs are toxic air pollutants that are posed to cause serious health effects such as reproductive effects or environmental or ecological effects. There are total 187 hazardous air pollutants. A socio-environmental synthesis approach was used by Petroni et al. (2020) to examine top five hazardous air pollutants (HAPS) including Acrolein, acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, diesel particulate matter and naphthalene. They found that HAPs do not affect the respiratory tract directly, but they do reduce the covid-19 patients’ ability to recover. However, in the negative binomial mixed county-level model, they predicted the covid-19 mortality as the function of hazardous air pollutants respiratory toxicity levels and related covariates. They came to a conclusion that a rise in Respiratory Hazard Index (RHI) is linked with 9% more covid-19 cases.  In The Conversation, environmental health scientists also stated that the diesel exhaust and industrial exhaust containing acetaldehyde is closely associated with higher cases of Covid-19, same as reported by Petroni et al., (2020).

Thus, it is now confirmed that both Criteria Pollutants as well as Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) have their implications in Covid-19 disease onset and recovery from it. More precisely, long-term and short-term pollution exposure may have direct or indirect systematic paraphernalia on the human body.

The metropolitan cities with high pollution level have both man to man and pollutant to man transmission of novel coronavirus. People like hawker, auto-rickshaw drivers, bus drivers, mechanics, and the people who travels through public transport get more exposed to particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ozone (O3) and these pollutants have caused higher agglomeration of virus and thus virus finds its way to get into human body through respiratory tract via inhalation, and not always via man to man transmission.

To know about increase in carbon emission and carbon foot print read here

References:

Alhanti, B.A., Chang, H.H., Winquist, A., 2016. Ambient air pollution and emergency department visits for asthma: a multi-city assessment of effect modification by age. J. Expo. Sci. Environ. Epidemiol. 26, 180–188.

 Anenberg, S.C., Henze, D.K., Tinney, V., 2018. Estimates of the global burden of ambient PM 2.5, ozone, and NO2 on asthma incidence and emergency room visits. Environ. Health Perspect. 126, 107004.

Ayyagari, V.N., Januszkiewicz, A., Nath, J., 2007. Effects of nitrogen dioxide on the expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1, neutrophil adhesion, and cytotoxicity: studies in human bronchial epithelial cells. Inhal. Toxicol. 19, 181–194.

Ciencewicki, J., Jaspers, I., 2007. Air pollution and respiratory viral infection. Inhal. Toxicol. 19, 1135–1146.

Coccia, M., 2020. Diffusion of COVID-19 Outbreaks: The interaction between air pollution-to-human and human-to-human transmission dynamics in hinterland regions with cold weather and low average wind speed. Working paper CocciaLab n. 48/2020, CNR – National Research Council of Italy.

Conticini, E., Frediani, B., Caro, D., 2020. Can atmospheric pollution be considered a co-factor in extremely high level of SARS-CoV-2 lethality in Northern Italy? Environ Pollut., 4 

Cui, Y., Zhang, Z.-F., Froines, J., 2003. Air pollution and case fatality of SARS in the People’s Republic of China: an ecologic study. Environ. Health 2, 15.

Fenger, J., 1999. Urban air quality. Atmospheric Environment, 33(29), 4877–4900.

 Golan, R., Ladva, C., Greenwald, R., 2018. Acute pulmonary and inflammatory response in young adults following a scripted car commute. Air Qual. Atmos. Health 11, 123–136.

Heymann, D.L., 2005. Social, behavioural and environmental factors and their impact on infectious disease outbreaks. J. Publ. Health Pol. 26, 133–139.

 Liang, D., Ladva, C.N., Golan, R., 2019. Perturbations of the arginine metabolome following exposures to traffic-related air pollution in a panel of commuters with and without asthma. Environ. Int. 127, 503–513.

 Liang, D., Moutinho, J.L., Golan, R., 2018. Use of high-resolution metabolomics for the identification of metabolic signals associated with traffic-related air pollution. Environ. Int. 120, 145–154.

Liang, D., Shi, L., Zhao, J., Liu, P., Sarnat, J. A., Gao, S., Chang, H. H., 2020. Urban Air Pollution May Enhance COVID-19 Case-Fatality and Mortality Rates in the United States. The Innovation, 100047.

Lin, K., Fong, D.Y., Zhu, B., et al., 2006. Environmental factors on the SARS epidemic: air temperature, passage of time and multiplicative effect of hospital infection. Epidemiol. Infect. 134, 223–230.

Liu, C., Chen, R., Sera, F., et al., 2019. Ambient particulate air pollution and daily mortality in 652 cities. N. Engl. J. Med. 381, 705–715.

Onder, G., Rezza, G., and Brusaferro, S., 2020. Case-fatality rate and characteristics of patients dying in relation to COVID-19 in Italy. JAMA 323, 1775–1776.

Petroni, M., Hill, D., Younes, L., Barkmen, L., Horward, S., 2020. Hazardous air pollutant exposure as a contributing factor to COVID-19 mortality in the United States. Environ. Res. Lett., 15, 0940a9

Qu, G., Li, X., Hu, L., et al., 2020. An imperative need for research on the role of environmental factors in transmission of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Environ. Sci. Technol. 54, 3730–3732.

Setti L., Passarini, De Gennaro GF, Barbieri P., Perrone M.G., Piazzalunga A., 2020. The potential role of particulate matter in the spreading of COVID-19 in Northern Italy: first evidence-based research hypotheses.. Retrieved in 2020, from: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.20061713v1.

Travaglio M., Yu Y., Popovic R., Santos Leal N., Martins L.M., 2020. Links between air pollution and COVID in England. medRxiv. 

Weiss, R.A., McMichael, A.J., 2004. Social and environmental risk factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Nat. Med. 10, S70–S76.

Worldometer, n.d. Coronavirus cases. Retrieved in 2020, from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Wu, X., Nethery, R. C., Sabath, M. B., Braun, D. and Dominici, F., 2020. Air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States: Strengths and limitations of an ecological regression analysis. Science advances, 6(45), p.eabd4049.

 Wu, X., Nethery, R.C., Sabath, B., Braun, D., Dominici, F., 2020. Exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States. MedRxiv. 

Yongjian, Z., Jingu, X., Fengming, H., 2020. Association between short-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 infection: evidence from China. Sci. Total Environ. 727, 138704.

Related Posts

23 thoughts on “How Urban Air Pollution Can Make Covid-19 More Deadly?

  1. I have to show my appreciation to the writer just for rescuing me from this particular trouble. Just after researching throughout the online world and meeting methods that were not pleasant, I assumed my entire life was gone. Being alive minus the answers to the difficulties you have sorted out by way of your review is a crucial case, and the ones that would have in a negative way affected my career if I had not encountered your website. Your main capability and kindness in handling a lot of stuff was invaluable. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t encountered such a step like this. I can now look ahead to my future. Thanks very much for the specialized and effective help. I won’t hesitate to refer your blog post to anyone who ought to have guide on this subject matter.

  2. I wanted to post you this very little observation so as to give thanks over again for your exceptional opinions you have featured above. It has been particularly generous of you giving unhampered all that numerous people could possibly have advertised as an ebook in order to make some cash for their own end, particularly considering the fact that you might have tried it if you wanted. The thoughts likewise acted as the great way to be aware that some people have the identical keenness similar to my very own to know the truth more and more with regard to this issue. I’m certain there are a lot more enjoyable occasions in the future for those who scan your blog post.

  3. I want to voice my admiration for your generosity giving support to those individuals that require help on the subject. Your real dedication to getting the message all through had become particularly functional and have always helped ladies much like me to attain their ambitions. Your amazing helpful facts means this much a person like me and especially to my peers. Thank you; from each one of us.

  4. I simply desired to appreciate you again. I am not sure the things I would have made to happen in the absence of those information revealed by you on such a area of interest. Previously it was the difficult setting in my view, however , finding out your expert way you resolved it made me to leap for happiness. I am happier for this support and as well , sincerely hope you are aware of a powerful job you were undertaking instructing men and women thru your blog. More than likely you haven’t come across any of us.

  5. Having read this I thought it was extremely enlightening.
    I appreciate you spending some time and energy to put this
    short article together. I once again find myself personally spending a significant amount of time both reading and
    commenting. But so what, it was still worthwhile!

  6. I would like to express my appreciation to you just for rescuing me from this matter. As a result of browsing throughout the the net and finding ideas which were not productive, I believed my entire life was over. Being alive without the strategies to the problems you have fixed by way of your main review is a serious case, and those which could have badly affected my entire career if I had not discovered your web site. That ability and kindness in dealing with a lot of things was crucial. I am not sure what I would have done if I had not come across such a point like this. I can at this point look ahead to my future. Thanks very much for the skilled and results-oriented guide. I will not think twice to suggest your blog to any person who requires care about this subject.

  7. I in addition to my guys were reading the great information from the blog while at once came up with a terrible suspicion I never expressed respect to the site owner for those techniques. Most of the men were thrilled to see them and have pretty much been taking pleasure in those things. Thanks for actually being quite accommodating and then for utilizing variety of marvelous subject matter millions of individuals are really eager to be aware of. My personal sincere apologies for not expressing appreciation to you sooner.

  8. I blog quite often and I really appreciate your content.
    The article has truly peaked my interest. I’m going to book mark your
    blog and keep checking for new details about once per week.
    I subscribed to your Feed as well.

  9. I not to mention my buddies ended up taking note of the nice advice located on the website and unexpectedly developed a terrible suspicion I had not thanked the web blog owner for them. Those people had been so joyful to read through them and have truly been enjoying those things. I appreciate you for turning out to be considerably kind and also for having this sort of wonderful issues millions of individuals are really desirous to be aware of. My sincere apologies for not expressing appreciation to you sooner.

  10. Thank you a lot for providing individuals with such a remarkable chance to read articles and blog posts from this web site. It is often so excellent and full of fun for me personally and my office friends to search your blog the equivalent of 3 times in a week to learn the latest tips you will have. And definitely, I’m also usually fascinated with all the incredible solutions served by you. Certain two points on this page are rather the most suitable we have had.

  11. Hey! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be okay.
    I’m undoubtedly enjoying your blog and look forward to new updates.

  12. Its like you read my mind! You appear to know a lot about this,
    like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you
    could do with a few pics to drive the message home a little bit, but other than that, this is excellent blog.
    A fantastic read. I will certainly be back.

  13. I and my guys were examining the good hints found on your web page and so at once got a horrible feeling I had not expressed respect to the blog owner for those secrets. The ladies appeared to be for this reason excited to read through them and have truly been using those things. Thanks for actually being indeed accommodating and also for obtaining some amazing areas most people are really desperate to be informed on. My very own honest regret for not expressing appreciation to earlier.

  14. What’s Happening i’m new to this, I stumbled upon this I have found It absolutely helpful and it has helped me out loads. I hope to contribute & assist other users like its helped me. Great job.

  15. Does your website have a contact page? I’m having a tough time locating it but, I’d like to send you an email. I’ve got some suggestions for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great blog and I look forward to seeing it develop over time.

  16. I must voice my appreciation for your kindness in support of folks who absolutely need assistance with in this matter. Your special commitment to passing the solution all over had become astonishingly useful and has usually empowered others much like me to arrive at their targets. The informative guidelines denotes much a person like me and extremely more to my colleagues. Thanks a ton; from each one of us.

  17. Have you ever thought about including a little bit more than just your articles? I mean, what you say is fundamental and everything. Nevertheless just imagine if you added some great pictures or video clips to give your posts more, “pop”! Your content is excellent but with images and clips, this site could undeniably be one of the most beneficial in its field. Excellent blog!

  18. Thank you so much for providing individuals with an exceptionally brilliant opportunity to check tips from this site. It’s always very excellent and stuffed with a good time for me personally and my office friends to visit your website particularly three times weekly to learn the latest guidance you will have. And of course, I’m also certainly fulfilled considering the gorgeous advice you serve. Selected 4 tips on this page are absolutely the most beneficial we have all had.

  19. I have to show appreciation to this writer just for rescuing me from this type of crisis. After looking out through the world wide web and coming across ideas which are not productive, I figured my entire life was well over. Living devoid of the strategies to the difficulties you’ve solved by means of this guide is a crucial case, and the kind that might have adversely affected my career if I hadn’t encountered the website. The knowledge and kindness in touching everything was very helpful. I am not sure what I would have done if I had not come upon such a subject like this. I can at this moment look forward to my future. Thanks so much for the skilled and effective guide. I won’t be reluctant to propose the blog to anyone who would need counselling on this area.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *