Improved air quality in Europe due to lockdowns to combat the coronavirus pandemic has delivered health benefits equivalent to avoiding 11,300 premature deaths, according to a study published on Thursday.
Researchers extrapolated the likely impact on diseases caused or made worse by air pollution, which has fallen dramatically as hundreds of millions of people have stayed at home over the past month.
"You could compare it to everyone in Europe stopping smoking for a month," said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which conducted the study.
“Our analysis highlights the tremendous benefits for public health and quality of life that could be achieved by rapidly reducing fossil fuels in a sustained and sustainable way.”
Coronavirus: Fitness industry seeing some positives in the crisis
We need graphs for coronavirus misery as well as mortality
Roadmap to reopen Ireland - Varadkar says five criteria at play, flights may resume in August
Patrick Freyne’s home working guide: Find a chair that’s good for your back. Mine is called a ‘bed’
The benefits in Germany, Britain and Italy exceeded the equivalent of more than 1,500 premature deaths in each country.
The average European citizen was exposed to nitrogen dioxide levels 37 per cnet below what would normally have been expected in the 30 days that ended on April 24th, CREA said. The gas is mostly produced from road transport.
Exposure to particulate matter, generated by transport, industry and coal-fired heating, was 12 per cent below normal levels, according to the study, which covered 21 European countries.
Other avoided health impacts included 6,000 fewer new cases of asthma in childen, 1.3 million fewer days of work absence, 1,900 avoided emergency room visits causes by asthma attacks, and 600 fewer premature births, the study said.
At the same time, the researchers noted that prolonged exposure to dirty air prior to the pandemic could have caused or exacerbated diabetes, lung disease, heart disease and cancer - all conditions that increase the risk of death for Covid-19 patients.
"What we can say so far is that there is an overlap between conditions associated with air pollution and those that have increased the risk of dying from Covid-19," said Sara De Matteis, a professor at Italy's Cagliari University and a member of the European Respiratory Society's environmental health committee.
The countries with the largest reductions in nitrogen dioxide pollution levels were Portugal, Spain, Norway, Croatia, France, Italy and Finland. The largest reductions in particulate matter pollution took place in Portugal, Greece, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Finland and Spain. Coal power plants in Britain have not been generating power for more than two weeks, the study said.
Air pollution causes more than 400,000 annual premature deaths in the 27-member European Union and ex-member Britain, according to the EU environment agency. – PA and Reuters