Air pollution and the spread of Covid-19, scientific studies
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Pollution and climatic conditions are the cause of a pandemic that is estimated to cause nearly 9 million deaths each year. And fine particles can also affect coronavirus circulation. To the point that their extraordinary concentration in the Po Valley could have favored the spread of the infection from Covid-19. Scientific studies. Time to change course.
Pollution, the global pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic she is not alone. There is another even more serious one, air pollution, to which almost 2019 million premature deaths were attributed in 10 alone, through cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, as well as cancers and other incurable diseases. This is what the study published on 3.5.19 by European Society of Cardiology. (1)
The researchers of Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the Department of Cardiology of the University Medical Center of Mainz (Germany) compared the data on exposure to air pollutants (Global Exposure Mortality Model, GEMM) with those on mortality and planetary demography (WHO, World Health Organization).
Premature mortality caused by air pollution - fossil fuels (2/3) and fire (1/3) - has been globally estimated to be 8,8 million cases (2015). More than tobacco (7,2 million premature deaths), HIV / AIDS (1 million), parasitic diseases (eg malaria, 600 deaths) and all forms of violence, civil and war (530). The death rate from air pollution is estimated at an average reduction in life expectancy of nearly three years for each human being.
Po Valley, pollution pandemic
The EFSA and ECDC's One Health report The Lancet Countdown on 'health and climate change, ensuring that the health of a child born today is not compromised by a changing climate'- was published 13.11.19/2,5/XNUMX. Italy ranks first in Europe, eleventh in the world, for premature deaths from exposure to PM XNUMX fine particles. Namely tiny particles (PM, particulate materials) solid and liquid, with a diameter of less than 2,5 microns (thousandths of a millimeter). Which penetrate the alveolar portions of the lungs.
WHO, World Health Organization (or WHO), in turn in March 2019 had estimated 80 thousand deaths in Italy caused each year by polluted air. We have thus reached the ninth place in the top ten global fatalities of anthropogenic origin, also considered other factors of pollution (perhaps because it also took into account other elements such as PM10, nitrogen dioxide and ozone).
Po Valley, the Covid-19 case
The Italian Society of Environmental Medicine (Sima), together with the University of Bologna and Bari, collected data on the daily concentration of PM10 detected by the Regional Agencies for Environmental Protection (ARPA) throughout Italy. Linking them with the data on positivity from COVID-19 reported on the Civil Protection website.
A relationship between the exceeding of the legal limits of the concentrations of fine dust (50 micrograms / m3 of daily concentration) - in the period between 10 and 29.2.20 - and the number of infections (updated to 3.3.20, considering a time lag of 14 days equal to the average incubation period) emerged in several provinces of the Po Valley.
Expansion curves of infection in the regions of the Po Valley, explains Professor Leonardo Setti of the University of Bologna, indeed show an anomalous acceleration of infections which tends to coincide with the highest concentrations of atmospheric particulate. In the Regions of Southern Italy, on the other hand, the expansion curves follow the typical trends of a person-to-person epidemic transmission.
Fine powders, a carrier for viruses
Concentrations of fine dust above the legal limits they could therefore have exercised an action to push the spread of the virus, which did not occur in other areas of Italy. In Rome, for example, although there were cases of Covid-19 in the same days as the Po regions, the same virulent phenomenon did not occur. Gianluigi de Gennaro, of the University of Bari, explains that fine particles operate as carrier, that is, they carry the virus andthe more there are, the more highways are created for infections'.
The atmospheric particulate matter it binds to viruses, with a coagulation process, and transports them over long distances. The particulate matter also constitutes a substrate that allows Covid-19 to remain in the air in vital conditions for a certain time, in the order of hours or days.
Previous cases the spread of viruses in relation to the concentration of PM10 in the atmosphere have also been highlighted in various epidemics:
- SARS. A retrospective epidemiological study conducted in China in 5 regions where SARS spread in 2002 (over 100 cases per region) he estimated
a) a significant increase in the risk of contracting the virus (+ 84%) in regions with moderate air pollution index (API) compared to those with low API,
b) a double prevalence of mortality following infection, in the most polluted regions (high API) compared to less polluted ones (low API. See note 5),
- avian flu (H2N1) was carried over long distances, in 2010, by the Asian dust storms,
- the respiratory syncytial virus human in children was transported deep into the lungs thanks to particulate matter,
- the measles virus in Lanzhou (China) it has been carried over in recent months due to the high levels of air pollution.
Exists therefore a correlation, according to the SIMA researchers, between the high speed of the infections and the concentration of PM10 and PM2,5 in the atmosphere. (4)
Covid-19, temperate climate and humidity
A study just posted on MedRxiv, pending peer review, then indicates how COVID-19 would prefer temperate climates. In particular, the areas with warm-temperate climates between the months of October and May and those with cold-temperate climates between April and September. Tropical areas (where temperatures are high and rainfall abundant) or polar areas (with extremely cold temperatures) could therefore be spared at least from this epidemic.
Humidity affects also in the spread of the virus. In fact, it has been observed that Sars-CoV can survive for 5 days on a smooth surface, at temperatures between 11 and 25 degrees with a humidity of 40-50%. The pathogens expelled from our body - through a sneeze for example - literally float in the air. And they can persist for a longer period if the humidity is higher, thus favoring the spread of the virus. (5)
SOS Ambiente, Constitution for the Earth
The right to breathe clean air, closely linked to the rights to life and health, entails specific obligations on the part of UN member states. The Special Rapporteur for Human Rights and the Environment David Boyde, in his report 8.1.19 to the General Assembly of the United Nations, stressed that every hour 800 people around the world die from particulate matter in the atmosphere. (6)
SOS Environment. Now or never you have to decarbonise the economy, stop deforestation in the name of palm oil and GMO soybeans, convert to eco-agriculture the agricultural supply chains now infested with agrotoxins are the prerequisites. A Constitution for the Earth it is the tool to guarantee the continuity of policies suited to life on the planet.
Dario Dongo and Alessandra Mei
Note
(1) Jos Lelieveld, Andrea Pozzer, Ulrich Pöschl, Mohammed Fnais, Andy Haines, Thomas Münzel (2020). Loss of life expectancy from air pollution compared to other risk factors: a worldwide perspective. cardiovascular research, https://doi.org/10.1093/cvr/cvaa025
(2) Nick Watts, Markus Amann, Prof Nigel Arnell, Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, Kristine Belesova, Prof Maxwell Boykoff, PhD et al. (2019). The 2019 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by a changing climate. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736 (19) 32596-6
(3) Galli, Corrado Lodovico. and Corsini, Emanuela. Toxicology (Piccin Nuova Libraria, Padua. 3rd edition, 2016) ISBN: 978-88-299-2793-7
(5) Cui, Y., Zhang, Z., Froines, J. et al. Air pollution and case fatality of SARS in the People's Republic of China: an ecologic study. Environ Health 2, 15 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-2-15
MB Araujo, B. Naimi. (2020). Spread of SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus likely to be constrained by climate. MedRxiv. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.12.20034728. Links: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.12.20034728v1
(6) Issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Report of the Special Rapporteur to the UN General Assembly, 8.1.19. https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G19/002/54/PDF/G1900254.pdf?OpenElement
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Graduated in Law from the University of Bologna, she attended the Master in Food Law at the same University.
