UK News Pollution 'may have contributed to 100,000 Covid-19 deaths'

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Air pollution may have contributed to 170,000 coronavirus deaths worldwide, a study has claimed.

An international team of researchers estimate 15 per cent of the 1.15million Covid-19 fatalities globally could have been avoided if the air was cleaner.

They said 14 per cent of deaths in the UK could have been prevented, the equivalent of nearly 6,300 lives.

Toxic fumes given off by cars and big industry drive up rates of health conditions which make people more vulnerable to Covid-19.

Previous research has blamed air pollution for about 7million deaths worldwide every year, by aggravating or causing conditions such as high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, diabetes and asthma.

Coronavirus deaths rise for FIFTH week in a row in England and Wales

A weekly report by the Office for National Statistics showed there were 438 deaths in the week up to October 9, increasing from 321 the week before and doubling 215 the week before that.Deaths from the disease have now been rising continuously since September 11, when the trend turned after 19 straight weeks of decline in the wake of March's lockdown.

Sun 19 Apr 2020 04.49 BST Last modified on Wed 1 Jul 2020 17.41 BST. Donald Trump has warned that China should face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the coronavirus pandemic, as deaths in Europe from Covid - 19 approached 100 , 000 .

But when it comes to Covid - 19 , these risks to respiratory health are not the sum of their parts; researchers in the US are building a case that As well as predisposing the people who have lived with polluted air for decades, scientists have also suggested that air pollution particles may be acting as

In the most recent study, published in the journal Cardiovascular Research today, the scientists looked at pollution levels in various countries around the world.

They then used mathematical modelling to calculate how many Covid-19 fatalities could be partly attributed to long-term exposure to toxic air.

The researchers said the figures do not imply that air pollution directly caused deaths from Covid-19 – although they have not ruled it out.

© Provided by Daily Mail Around 15 per cent of Covid-19 deaths worldwide could have been avoided if the air was cleaner, a study has claimed. The largest proportion of deaths attributed to pollution was in the Czech Republic (29 per cent). Pictured is the percentages for a range of countries

Independent scientists reacting to the findings said it was too early to put a figure on the amount of deaths that may have been as a result of pollution. But they admitted the study's estimates were entirely possible.

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Professor Andrew Harvey, an emeritus professor at the University of Cambridge, calculated the death toll could have been halved if Britain went into lockdown on March 19, rather than March 26.The UK went into full lockdown on March 23, when 36 people were dying of Covid-19 per day on average.

COVID - 19 related hospitalization rates and pneumonia, influenza and COVID (PIC) mortality for the most recent weeks may increase as more data are Nationally, several surveillance indicators of COVID - 19 related activity are showing increases in SARS-CoV-2 virus circulation and related illnesses.

COVID - 19 might help us see those costs more clearly, he says. “More broadly, the fact that disruption of this magnitude could actually lead to some large (partial) benefits suggests that our normal way of doing things might need disrupting.” The effects were most dramatic in southern Chinese cities like

The latest study focused on a type of pollution called particulate matter, otherwise known as PM2.5. It is produced mostly by car fumes, construction work and burning fossil fuels.

In the UK, PM2.5 comes from a range of sources including wood burners, road traffic – both from exhaust emissions and brake, tyre and road wear – and industrial, construction and manufacturing processes.

The researchers used satellite data of global exposure to PM2.5 and information on atmospheric conditions to assess how severe pollution was in each country.

The degree to which air pollution influences mortality from coronavirus was derived from data a study in the US, and Chinese studies of air pollution and the Sars outbreak in 2003.

A model was created which could calculate how many deaths may have been linked to toxic air as a result of the level of pollution in any given area.

The work suggests 27 per cent of deaths in East Asia could be attributed to air pollution, 17 per cent in North America and around 19 per cent in Europe overall.

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Early research on Covid - 19 suggests smokers and former smokers are more susceptible to the virus. But one difference is that Covid - 19 appears to have a lower The link between such pollutants and early deaths are well known and Marshall Burke, at Stanford University in the US, used the data to

Trump in April predicted 60, 000 American lives would be lost but on Sunday said: “We’re going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100 , 000 people. Italian authorities have said some preventative measures are still needed in a country that has the second-highest number of virus deaths .

The largest proportion of deaths attributed to pollution was in the Czech Republic (29 per cent), followed by Poland (28 per cent), China (27 per cent), North Korea (27 per cent) and Slovakia (27 per cent).

Germany, Hungary, Austria and Belarus were the European countries with more than 25 per cent of deaths attributable to pollution.

The UK was 53rd place in the world, putting it in the top quarter of countries with a higher proportion of deaths linked with toxic air.

In regions with strict air quality standards and relatively low levels of air pollution, such as Australia and New Zealand, pollution was found to be linked to just a few per cent of Covid-19 deaths (three per cent and one per cent, respectively).

One of the authors of the study, Professor Jos Lelieveld, from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, and the Cyprus Institute Nicosia, said: 'Since the numbers of deaths from Covid-19 are increasing all the time, it's not possible to give exact or final numbers of Covid-19 deaths per country that can be attributed to air pollution.

'However, as an example, in the UK there have been over 44,000 coronavirus deaths and we estimate that the fraction attributable to air pollution is 14 per cent, meaning that more than 6,100 deaths could be attributed to air pollution.'

UK is recording more Covid-19 deaths per million people than the US

Two people for every million in the population are dying from Covid-19 in the UK and US every day. But the UK's seven day average is slightly higher, at 2.63 compared to 2.4.Both countries are currently recording around two Covid-19 deaths for every million people — but Britain's rate stands slightly higher at 2.63, compared to 2.4 in the US.

AS COVID - 19 has spread around the world, people have become grimly familiar with the death tolls that their governments publish each day. Second, hospitals and civil registries may not process death certificates for several days, or even weeks, which creates lags in the data.

Government’s handling of pandemic under scrutiny as UK becomes worst-hit European country.

The UK's death toll currently stands at 44,896, meaning 6,300 deaths could have been avoided.

Professor Lelieveld added: 'In the USA, more than 220,000 Covid deaths with a fraction of 18 per cent yields about 40,000 deaths attributable to air pollution.'

© Provided by Daily Mail Pictured: Estimated percentages of Covid-19 mortality attributed to pollution. The darker colours indicate a higher percentage

They team said their findings do 'not imply a direct cause-effect relationship between air pollution and Covid-19 mortality (although it is possible)'.

Instead it can only show a relationship between two, and say it is likely Covid-19 aggravates other health conditions 'that could lead to fatal health outcomes of the virus infection'.

Fellow researcher Professor Thomas Münzel, from Johannes Gutenberg University and the German Centre for Cardiovascular Research in Mainz, said inhaled polluting particles cause inflammation and damage to arteries.

It irritates the inner lining of arteries, the endothelium, and leads to the narrowing and stiffening of the arteries.

This pre-existing damage to blood vessels might put a person at heightened risk of severe Covid-19.

Doctors have learnt over the course of the pandemic that Covid-19 is a disease of the vascular system, and not just a respiratory disease.

If a person is infected by the coronavirus, it has the potential to cause abnormal blood clotting, ‘leaky’ vessels and reduced blood flow.

The British Heart Foundation says Covid-19 can cause ‘sticky blood’ raising the risk of deep vein thrombosis and blood clots.

Blood clots can lead to strokes or heart attacks, therefore coronavirus patients often die of complications caused by the virus, rather than the virus itself.

Higher levels of D-dimer, a breakdown product of blood clots, have been seen in critically ill patients.

It may explain why people with high blood pressure and diabetes - conditions that both damage blood vessels - are disproportionately dying of Covid-19.

Professor Münzel said: 'If both long-term exposure to air pollution and infection with the Covid-19 virus come together then we have an additive adverse effect on health, particularly with respect to the heart and blood vessels, which leads to greater vulnerability and less resilience to Covid-19.

'If you already have heart disease, then air pollution and coronavirus infection will cause trouble that can lead to heart attacks, heart failure and stroke.'

The gateway for viral entry in the lung, the ACE2 receptor, is also found on the endothelial cells lining blood vessels.

The coronavirus latches onto the ACE2 receptor by binding to it and then it replicates inside the cell.

Professor Münzel and colleagues believe PM may make the lungs more susceptible to the coronavirus by increasing the expression of ACE-2 receptors that coat cells.

He said: 'So we have a "double hit": air pollution damages the lungs and increases the activity of ACE-2, which in turn leads to enhanced uptake of the virus by the lungs and probably by the blood vessels and the heart.'

The study also said 'it seems likely' that the fine polluting particles prolong the time infectious viruses survive in the air.

Viruses may be absorbed by particulate matter and then travel or linger in the air for hours or even days before being inhaled by someone.

The tiny particles can then be inhaled deep into the lungs where the virus begins replicating.

This would suggest the coronavirus is airborne, meaning people can inhale it from tiny particles in the air. But this is not considered the main route of transmission - droplets from coughs and sneezes is.

Professor Lelieveld said: 'It's likely that particulate matter plays a role in "super-spreading events" by favouring transmission.'

Commenting on the study, Professor Anna Hansell, from the University of Leicester, said: 'While it is extremely likely that there is a link between air pollution and Covid-19 mortality, it is premature to attempt to precisely quantify it, as here, given the current state of the evidence.

'However, there are plenty of other good reasons to act now to reduce air pollution, which the WHO (World Health Organisation) already links to seven million deaths worldwide per year.'

Professor Hansell noted the study was limited by the fact it only used two studies to come to its conclusions.

The US study has not yet completed the full peer review process, and so the associations reported may change afterwards.

The second study relates to SARS in China in 2003 and not to Covid-19.

SARS appeared in China in the early 2000s and led to more than 8,000 cases in 26 countrie, but was contaned by 2003.

The virus has many similarities to SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19. Both are zoonotic diseases, thought to have jumped from animals to humans, and bind to the same receptor to enter cells (ACE-2).

But the study's findings, although valid, would have been more accurate had it used data from SARS-CoV-2.

The research team was led by Andrea Pozzer of the International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy. But it involved researchers from Germany, the US, Britain and Cyprus.

The researchers said the majority of the particulate matter came from fossil fuels and called for efforts to cut emissions.

Writing in the medical journal, they said: 'A lesson from our environmental perspective of the Covid-19 pandemic is that the quest for effective policies to reduce anthropogenic emissions, which cause both air pollution and climate change, needs to be accelerated.

'The pandemic ends with the vaccination of the population or with herd immunity through extensive infection of the population.

'However, there are no vaccines against poor air quality and climate change. The remedy is to mitigate emissions.'

Poor air quality, especially from PM2.5 is responsible for many excess death globally. exceeding those caused by infectious diseases, the team said.

Air pollution affects all regions of the world, but more so in low-income cities, 97 per cent of which do not meet air quality guidelines set out by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Even in high-income countries, 49 per cent are breaching pollution limits.

There are particularly high exposures in the Eastern Mediterranean, South‐East Asian and Western Pacific regions.

However, it is the US, Europe and Latin America which has been significantly impacted by Covid-19, if looking at government reported data on cases and deaths.