Thomas Robinson | April 14th, 2020

A recent Harvard study has presented a link between air pollution and a heightened mortality risk from COVID-19. Models developed by the researchers predict a 15% increase in COVID-19 death rates if the concentration of fine particulate matter increased by a small amount (1 microgram per meter cubed).

Particulate matter in the air comes from sources of dust or sooty emissions, such as agricultural fields or factories.  There are two common sizes of particle pollution, PM₁₀ (large) and PM_2.5 (fine), where the number indicates the average diameter of the particles in micrometers.  For reference, an average human hair is approximately 70 micrometers in diameter, meaning that a PM_2.5 particle is about 30 times smaller than a human hair.

It is well known that air pollution has harmful effects on human health, and that air pollution measures such as the Clean Air Act have a positive influence on human health outcomes.  What is becoming more apparent as COVID-19 continues to affect the globe is that improvements in air quality can result in measurable improvements for human health moving forward.  For example, the study suggests that if the long-term average PM_2.5 in Manhattan had been reduced by 1 µg/m³ there might have been 248 fewer deaths associated with COVID-19 as of April 4^th in New York County.