At the start of the epidemic, there was a strong link between pollution and deaths, but this has since proved inconclusiveAir pollution does not seem to increase the risk from coronavirus once ethnicity is taken into account, an official review has concluded. The risk of catching and dying from the disease was 7 per cent higher in areas of higher pollution, but this apparent link vanished when scientists adjusted for the fact that people from minority backgrounds are more likely to live in polluted areas. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said its findings were “inconclusive”, but could not rule out some role in fine particulate pollution in worsening Covid severity. Breathing problems are a known risk for coronavirus and more than a third of people who have died during the pandemic had respiratory or heart diseases. Early studies from the US and the Netherlands

Source: The Times August 13, 2020 11:03 UTC