“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18

We will be blogging individual articles from The League Line, our quarterly newsletter

Spring 2020 issue: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/Spring2020.pdf
Index to this and other issues: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/index.htm

Spring 2020 

By Louis A. Zeller, Executive Director  

 The death rate of the COVID-19 coronavirus is greatly increased by air pollution. According to a recent study done by the Harvard School of Public Health, “A small increase in long-term exposure to PM-2.5 leads to a large increase in COVID-19 death rate….” PM-2.5 is microscopic particulate matter of 2½ microns in diameter, or one third the diameter of a human hair. PM-2.5 is an air pollutant directly caused by combustion of fuels—coal, oil, natural gas, biomass—or formed in the air by pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emitted from power plants, industries and automobiles. Its small size allows the pollutant to penetrate deep into the lungs where the damage is done.
The Harvard study collected data from 3,000 counties across the United States covering 98% of the population. The analysis compensates for behavioral and socioeconomic factors including obesity and smoking.* The study concluded, “We found that an increase of only 1 μg/m3 in PM2.5 is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate…” With the expected death toll caused by COVID-19 in the United States ranging from 100,000 to 254,000, this would mean that a one microgram per cubic meter difference in fine particle pollution makes a difference of some 15,000 to 36,000 deaths.

In the mid-Atlantic and Appalachian region of the United States, the midrange level of PM-2.5 is 11.35 μg/m3, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. In urban areas the level can reach 19.2 μg/m3. Three years ago, the same Harvard school revealed that exposure to airborne PM-2.5 even at levels below National Ambient Air Quality Standards then in force increased the risk of premature death. And that blacks and low-income populations had risks upwards of three times as high. Conversely, they found that by lowering the level of PM-2.5 by 1 microgram per cubic meter about 12,000 lives could be saved annually nationwide. But by abandoning the Paris climate accord, revoking America’s Clean Power Plan, repealing corporate average fuel economy standards for automobiles, and sabotaging other environmentally beneficial programs, the current Administration is creating a human tinderbox. The match is the coronavirus. We must be the bucket brigade.

*Exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States. Xiao Wu, Rachel C. Nethery, Benjamin M. Sabath, Danielle Braun, Francesca Dominici. medRxiv 2020.04.05.20054502; doi: hps:// doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.05.20054502