German study: 2,500 corona deaths in Belgium linked to poor air...

Some 2,500 corona deaths in our country could be attributed to air pollution. That is the striking conclusion of a study by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC).

Worldwide, 15 percent of all corona deaths can be linked to long-term exposure to air pollution, say the authors of the study published last week in the scientific journal Cardiovascular Research. Because the air quality varies greatly per location, the authors made a separate calculation per country and continent.

According to them, about 19 percent of corona deaths in Europe can be linked to man-made air pollution. In North America that would be 17 percent and in East Asia they speak of 27 percent.

For Belgium this would be 21 percent. So, judging from the 12,126 deaths that Sciensano had on its website on Wednesday, it would be about 2,500 deaths.

Margin of error

Note: the study has a very large margin of error. For our country, for example, the percentage can fluctuate between 10 and 44 percent. “But that also means that according to our calculations at least 10 percent of corona deaths could have been avoided if there were no emissions,” said lead author Dr. Andrea Pozzer (MPIC).

Pozzer and his colleagues base their research on previous research from the United States. This shows that there is a link between the death toll from previous corona outbreaks in the US and China and air pollution. The researchers at the Max Planck Institute compare these results with a statistical model of the presence of particulate matter around the world.

In other words, the research is based on statistical calculations and not on measurements from patients in the hospital. It immediately explains why the error margins are so large. It involves a correlation between air pollution and corona. There is no causal relationship.

“You cannot identify one-to-one persons who died from prolonged breathing of bad air,” says co-author and head of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) Jos Lelieveld about this to the Dutch newspaper. Het Parool. “We provide risk assessments and they are surrounded by uncertainty.”

Smoking

Although the link between the two is not illogical. “The chance that you will become ill, or even worse, die from an infection with Covid-19, strongly depends on a number of things: age, gender and other diseases,” says professor of pneumology Guy Brusselle (UZ Gent). “Those other diseases are higher blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases and also diabetes. ”

We know that smoking is a strong risk factor for these diseases. “In addition, smoking also ensures that the receptor on which the virus binds in the nose, throat and lungs, ACE2, is expressed more and therefore increases the risk of a more serious disease, says Brusselle. “This is probably also the case for air pollution and especially exposure to particulate matter.”

In a nutshell, the link between air pollution and the chance of dying from corona is not surprising. The innovative thing about the German study is that it tries to add a number to it. The question then is whether the calculations from the study are reliable. Pozzer admits that the margin of error is wide, though he says he is confident that future research will confirm the findings.

Wrong conclusions

“The main message is that we have to think about air quality,” he says. “This not only has a direct effect on the body, but also a lot of indirect effects, such as worsening the clinical picture of other diseases.” Pozzer therefore mainly sees a plea for a stricter policy to reduce our ecological footprint.

Brusselle, who says she is not a statistician, has reservations about the high numbers. As far as he is concerned, they should not lead to incorrect conclusions. “You should therefore not interpret this study as true air pollution is one of the greatest risks of getting corona. That still remains someone’s behavior. ”