Environmental pollution increases the risks of COVID-19

Since Corona's pandemic began spreading to Chinese Wuhan and later to parts of northern Italy, scientists began to see environmental pollution in these regions. Wuhan, with millions of inhabitants, has steel and coal industries, chemical plants, and large literary plants. That is why air pollution is also intense.

The same is true in Lombardy, northern Italy, the spring of 2020. Nearly half of all Italian victims of COVID-19 have died in this area. Doctors speculate that the high death toll may have to do with high levels of harmful air pollution created in this region by the industrial and agricultural industry that is cultivated in ecstasy. It has long been known that small dust particles that pollute the environment weaken the immune system and affect the lungs, reports DW.

Environmental toxins damage lung tissue

Recent studies in the scientific magazine “Cardiovascular Research” confirm this. According to them, there is a link between environmental pollution and increasing risks that COVID-19 causes death.

Researchers have estimated that an average of 15 percent of the deaths from Corona to the world concerned the fact that victims have absorbed polluted air for a long time. The number of victims vary greatly from region to region: In Europe, according to estimates, 19 per cent, in Asia 27 per cent, in North America 17, in Brazil 12 and New Zealand only 1 per cent.

Dust particles cause lung infections. “Münzel, university professor and cardiologist from Mainz, one of the co-authors of the study. It is these endothelial layers that are affected by environmental dust particles. If lungs are once damaged by dust particles, they cannot be protected by SARS-CoV-2.

Our “assessments point to the great importance of air pollution on health factors that are mutually deteriorating and can cause lethal infections, ” explains Andrea Pozzer, the leader of the body for atmospheric chemistry at the Max-Plank Institute of Kimy, who has also participated in the study.

Environmental pollution and the Corona virus are dangerous combinations for blood vessels and hearts, says Professor Münzel. So people with heart disease are deeply affected. If a person with heart disease or blood vessels receives an infection with COVID-19, the risks of heart attacks or hemorrhages increase. The smaller the particles of dust, the greater the chance it will end up in the bloodstream and from there to the blood vessels system, the” explains Münzel.

Dust particles have many sources

Dust particles are carbon cores on which harmful substances have been attached, such as aluminum, lead, nitrate, or sulphate. They are suspended in the air, for example, from industry chimneys. They are called soot, sometimes grains of sand. They come from car tires or brake equipment, plastic particles, pollen, or the dust of the construction site.

Agriculture contributes its contribution to environmental pollution through ammonia emissions, waste waste waste, or waste disposal. Nitrous oxygen from oil engines strengthens the impact of dust.

Researchers distinguish between different dimensions of dust. There are particles of dust that are 100 micrometers and others that are only a few nanometers. Very dangerous are the so - called fine fractions with diameter less than 0.1 micrometers, respectively. That fits the size of the virus. For these very dangerous small particles, the EU has not set any kind of allowed maximum limit. But neither the EU nor other countries respect the maximum borders of values provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

O BSH is looking for small chunks that are 2.5 micrometers in diameter to be located on the 10 micrograms per cubic metre mask. The border value set by the EU is higher at 25. “90 percent of the world's population live virtually with far higher dust value than values set by O BSH,” says Münzel, “n, we need border value for small dust particles so that we can protect ourselves from the effects on health. ”

The danger of pollution with tiny dust particles is underestimated in public. So far, more than a million people have died from Corona, the cardiologist from Mainz warns. Because of pollution from small particles of dust, 9 million people die in the world each year. What is required is change in thinking, especially politics, says the professor of medicine. With the vaccine developing, Corona virus can be fought. But there's no anti-air quality vaccine.