Journal
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CARDIOLOGY
Volume 77, Issue 13, Pages 1684-1688Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2020.12.003
Keywords
air pollution; cardiovascular disease; CVD; environmental health impacts; climate
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Air pollution not only affects respiratory defense mechanisms, leading to worsened infections, but also contributes to worsened comorbidities and increased infection transmission. Despite the massive disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, societal lockdowns have shown the potential benefits of strong air pollution measures.
Although the attention of the world and the global health community specifically is deservedly focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, other determinants of health continue to have large impacts and may also interact with COVID-19. Air pollution is one crucial example. Established evidence from other respiratory viruses and emerging evidence for COVID-19 specifically indicates that air pollution alters respiratory defense mechanisms leading to worsened infection severity. Air pollution also contributes to co-morbidities that are known to worsen outcomes amongst those infected with COVID-19, and air pollution may also enhance infection transmission due to its impact on more frequent coughing. Yet despite the massive disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are reasons for optimism: broad societal lockdowns have shown us a glimpse of what a future with strong air pollution measures could yield. Thus, the urgency to combat air pollution is not diminished, but instead heightened in the context of the pandemic.
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