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Can atmospheric pollution be considered a co-factor in extremely high level of SARS-CoV-2 lethality in Northern Italy?
Open accessAbstract
This paper investigates the correlation between the high level of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) lethality and the atmospheric pollution in Northern Italy. Indeed, Lombardy and Emilia Romagna are Italian regions with both the highest level of virus lethality in the world and one of Europe’s most polluted area. Based on this correlation, this paper analyzes the possible link between pollution and the development of acute respiratory distress syndrome and eventually death. We provide evidence that people living in an area with high levels of pollutant are more prone to develop chronic respiratory conditions and suitable to any infective agent. Moreover, a prolonged exposure to air pollution leads to a chronic inflammatory stimulus, even in young and healthy subjects. We conclude that the high level of pollution in Northern Italy should be considered an additional co-factor of the high level of lethality recorded in that area.
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Citations
Cited by
Reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2
Prather, K. A., Wang, C. C., & Schooley, R. T. (2020) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.abc6197 · Cited by 850
Role of the chronic air pollution levels in the Covid-19 outbreak risk in Italy
Fattorini, D., & Regoli, F. (2020) · Environmental Pollution · doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2020.114732 · Cited by 616
Regional and global contributions of air pollution to risk of death from COVID-19
Pozzer, A., Dominici, F., Haines, A., Witt, C., Münzel, T., & Lelieveld, J. (2020) · Cardiovascular Research · doi:10.1093/cvr/cvaa288 · Cited by 463
“valley, especially in the Lombardy region of which Milan is the capital, were associated with a high mortality rate.(24) As mentioned above, in the USA the severity of COVID-19 outcomes was linked to PM2.”
BackgroundComunian, S., Dongo, D., Milani, C., & Palestini, P. (2020) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph17124487 · Cited by 464
Effects of air pollutants on the transmission and severity of respiratory viral infections
Domingo, J. L., & Rovira, J. (2020) · Environmental Research · doi:10.1016/j.envres.2020.109650 · Cited by 387
Metadata
- Authors
- Conticini, E., Frediani, B., & Caro, D.
- Venue
- Environmental Pollution
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-06
- Volume
- 261
- Pages
- 114465
- ISSN
- 0269-7491 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3015019427
- Cited by
- 877
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 72.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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- Conticini, E., Frediani, B., & Caro, D. (2020). Can atmospheric pollution be considered a co-factor in extremely high level of SARS-CoV-2 lethality in Northern Italy? Environmental Pollution. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2020.114465
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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