COVID-19 and Air Pollution: Follow the Science

Abstract:

The role of exposure to air pollution as a risk factor for SARS-CoV-2 infection and progression to COVID-19 has been an important research question since the start of the pandemic, given its start in a polluted area of China and subsequent outbreaks in northern Italy and Iran. In addition, previously published epidemiological and experimental literature provide reasonably robust support for exposure to air pollution as likely increasing the risk of both infection and severity of subsequent disease from a respiratory virus. An early ecological study of the association between annual average concentration of PM2.5 and COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. suggested an impressively strong impact of this pollutant. The economic shutdown due to public health shelter-in-place mandates reduced traffic-related pollution across the world. However, in the U.S., the Trump Administration's decision to suspend enforcement of EPA air quality regulations may have led to increased emissions from stationary sources. Given the disproportionate burden of exposure to such emissions that impacts communities of color, the suspension of EPA enforcement may have contributed to the disproportionate prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 among these vulnerable populations. The Trump Administration's approach to climate change, the health effects of air pollution, and the coronavirus pandemic is woven from the same anti-science cloth. Much damage to evidence-based policy-making has been done and efforts to repair this damage must be as fast and furious as possible.