COVID-19, Air Pollution and One Health at the Climate Change Turning Point

COVID-19 escalated into a pandemic posing humanitarians and scientific challenges. We explored the geographical feature of the first wave infection and correlated it with annual satellite and ground indexes of air quality in eight countries: China, U.S.A, Italy, Iran, France, Spain, Germany, and U.K. Controlling for population size, we found more viral infections in those areas which were afflicted by high PM 2.5 and nitrogen dioxide values. Higher mortality was also correlated with relatively poor air quality. This phenomenon also occurs in China when removing, the city of Wuhan and its province from the dataset. For long recognised to be a high-risk factor for several respiratory-related diseases and conditions, air pollution seems to be a risk factor for COVID-19 too. This finding suggests the detrimental impact climate change will have on the trajectory of future respiratory epidemics. Previous Asian epidemics and the Ebola have brought forward evidence of the natural causes of zoonoses which have become more threatening due to land-use change, ensued lack of a buffer zone between the cities and the forests, and our closer proximity to wild pathogens. Together with air pollution, these elements illustrate the need to stick to the UN targets limiting biodiversity loss and climate change.