Air pollution : a more serious health problem than COVID-19 in 2020

• Main Authors: Dun, Wei, Chen, Dean, Petäjä, Tuukka, Kulmala, Markku
• Other Authors: Air quality research group, Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Finnish Environment Institute 2021
• Subjects: 114 Physical sciences; Boreal Environment Research
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/336005

As a global pandemic, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses a serious threat to people's health. However, by comparing the deaths caused by COVID-19 and deaths from air pollution in 183 countries, our results show that air pollution was even more of a serious health problem than COVID-19 in 2020. The relative roles of air pollution and COVID-19-attributable deaths across countries were affected by PM2.5 exposure, population age structure, societal development and government policies. The countries with less strict policies during the early stages of COVID-19, to ensure stable economic development, paid more to control COVID-19 deaths in the subsequent stages, and hence showed large GDP reduction percentages in 2020. Our results indicate that the COVID-19 is a serious killer but also that the mortality caused by air pollution is high, which underline the concurrent need to control the dispersion of COVID-19 and improvement of air quality. As a global pandemic, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses a serious threat to people's health. However, by comparing the deaths caused by COVID-19 and deaths from air pollution in 183 countries, our results show that air pollution was even more of a serious health problem than COVID-19 in 2020. The relative roles of air pollution and COVID-19-attributable deaths across countries were affected by PM 25 exposure, population age structure, societal development and govermnent policies. The countries with less strict policies during the early stages of COVID-19, to ensure stable economic development, paid more to control COVID-19 deaths in the subsequent stages, and hence showed large GDP reduction percentages in 2020. Our results indicate that the COVID-19 is a serious killer but also that the mortality caused by air pollution is high, which underline the concurrent need to control the dispersion of COVID-19 and improvement of air quality. Peer reviewed