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Covid-19 and particulate matter - a deadly team

According to experts, every seventh death in connection with the Sars-CoV-2 virus is due to high levels of particulate matter in the air.

In the past months, we have already reported several times in our daily blog about the potentially dangerous interaction between severe courses of Covid-19 and particulate matter pollution. Several studies are already looking into this issue, but now the terrible suspicion is becoming more and more confirmed and is taking on more and more scientific dimensions. Already in spring, the first voices were heard pointing to a pattern of locations with particularly delicate and severe courses of the lung disease.
Thus the north of Italy, where the epidemic struck particularly mercilessly at the beginning of this year, is the economic heart of the country and the location of many industries. Furthermore, all areas in China, without exception, where Covid-19 raged heavily, are industrial strongholds with proven extremely poor air quality.
The thesis is clear and simple: Those who are exposed to a certain concentration of the tiny fine dust particles for a longer period of time in their everyday lives have a worse starting situation in case of a severe course of Covid-19 and are exposed to the risk of dying from the disease or to suffer blatant and long-term damage from it. Based on this study, almost one in seven deaths, or the equivalent of about 15 percent, can be attributed to particulate matter. The particulate matter mentioned above, especially the smallest particles of less than 2.5 micrometres released by road traffic and modern incineration plants, have long been known as a potential trigger of serious inflammations. What is new, however, is the finding that, in combination with poor air quality, people's chances of survival are significantly reduced in the event of a serious illness. 
The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that it would immediately publish its own comprehensive study on this particular interaction of air values and the virus.

For many patients and their relatives, however, this finding comes (already) too late.