A recent scientific study highlights the role of pollution in the spread of Covid-19. Experts are trying to understand if this has allowed the infection to spread over greater distances.
–
Italian researchers have detected the presence of the coronavirus in polluted air particles, the Guardian reported on Friday, April 24.
The study was carried out in Italy, on an industrial and another urban site in the region of Bergamo, one of the first centers of the epidemic in this country. Scientists analyzed the air quality and identified a highly specific discomfort to Covid-19 in several samples. Blind tests have confirmed this hypothesis.
Statistical analysis, which cross-checks data from the field, suggests a link between high levels of pollution and high infection rates in northern Italy, reports the Guardian.
A vector over long distances?
Scientists are now trying to understand if pollution can promote the circulation of the virus over long distances, via droplets from coughs and sneezing of patients.
“It is perhaps not surprising that, while suspended in the air, small droplets can combine with urban particles and be transported,” Professor Jonathan Reid of the University of Bristol.
The question of a larger displacement through the particles of polluted air is now the subject of debate. Professor Leonardo Setti of the University of Bologna, director of the Italian study, explains to the Guardian that droplets between 0.1 and 1 micron can travel further when they have fused with pollution particles measuring up to 10 microns.
The hypothesis of air transmission favored by pollution had already been the subject of two other scientific studies recently.
– .
