'... dangerous combination': New study says wildfire smoke linked to increased covid cases, deaths
Source: Washington Post
Climate and Environment
'This is a very dangerous combination': New study says wildfire smoke linked to increased covid cases, deaths
Harvard University researchers studied more than 90 counties in the West that were hit hard by wildfires in 2020.
By Joshua Partlow
Today at 4:35 p.m. EDT
In a new study published on Friday, a team of researchers at Harvard University found evidence that exposure to elevated levels of fine particle pollution found in wildfire smoke may have led to thousands more cases of covid-19 and more deaths among those who tested positive for the coronavirus.
In some counties in California and Washington state hit particularly hard by wildfires last year, the study, published in the journal Science Advances, concluded that nearly 20 percent of the covid-19 cases were linked to elevated levels of wildfire smoke. They also found that an even higher percentage of deaths could be linked to wildfire smoke in certain counties.
"Clearly, we see that, overall, this is a very dangerous combination," Francesca Dominici, a professor of biostatistics at Harvard and one of the authors of the study, said of the interplay between smoke and covid-19. "It's a really scary thing as we continue to face these wildfires all around the world."
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To investigate the connection between smoke and covid-19, the researchers -- from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences -- developed statistical models that analyzed data from 92 counties in California, Oregon and Washington state where wildfires occurred between March and December 2020. In those three states, more than 73,000 people have died of covid-19 during the pandemic.
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By Josh Partlow
Joshua Partlow is a reporter on the The Washington Post's national desk. He has served previously as the bureau chief in Mexico City, Kabul, Rio de Janeiro, and as a correspondent in Baghdad. Twitter https://twitter.com/partlowj
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/08/13/this-is-very-dangerous-combination-new-study-says-wildfire-smoke-leads-higher-covid-risks/
Wildfire smoke may have contributed to thousands of extra COVID-19 cases and deaths in western U.S. in 2020
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/wildfire-smoke-may-have-contributed-to-thousands-of-extra-covid-19-cases-and-deaths-in-western-u-s-in-2020/
California wildfires
For immediate release: Friday, August 13, 2021
Boston, MA - Thousands of COVID-19 cases and deaths in California, Oregon, and Washington between March and December 2020 may be attributable to increases in fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) from wildfire smoke, according to a new study co-authored by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The study is the first to quantify the degree to which increases in PM2.5 pollution during the wildfires contributed to excess COVID-19 cases and deaths in the U.S. It was published online August 13, 2021, in Science Advances.
"The year 2020 brought unimaginable challenges in public health, with the convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and wildfires across the western United States. In this study we are providing evidence that climate change--which increases the frequency and the intensity of wildfires--and the pandemic are a disastrous combination," said Francesca Dominici, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population and Data Science at Harvard Chan School and senior author of the study.
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