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In addition to being the day with the highest number of new coronavirus infections in Serbia, Belgrade is often on the list of the most polluted cities in the world, and it is not the only city in the country where citizens have difficulty breathing. More and more scientific studies are trying to prove the connection between air pollution and coronavirus, with one of them estimating that air pollution could lead to an increased risk of death by about 15 percent.
A study published in the medical journal Cardiovascular Research showed that prolonged exposure to air pollution, which already causes premature death, could increase the risk of dying from kovida-19 in the world by an average of about 15 percent.
Ognjan Pantić from the Belgrade Open School warns that, where air pollution is highest, the number of patients, hospitalized and deaths from kovida-19 is higher.
“Some studies have been detailed, like the one in the Netherlands, which showed that cities with just one more microgram of pollution have up to nine additional cases, three additional hospitalizations, and two or three additional deaths. The results are similar for the United States. “And now, some other studies have tried to test these arguments a little more difficult, and that is the question of whether the virus will last longer in the air, something for which there is not enough evidence,” explains Pantic.
Long-term inhalation of polluted air has caused more deaths than covids, mainly in the Czech Republic, China, Germany and Switzerland, according to the study. Otherwise, air pollution increases the risk of many diseases: chronic lung diseases, asthma, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and others, and these diseases pose an increased risk of a serious COVID-19 outcome.
Pulmonologist Tatjana Radosavljević recalls that in chronic patients, only air pollution can cause a fatal worsening of their basic diseases.
“This means that these people become seriously ill, require hospital treatment, and sometimes end in death. On the other hand, these patients run the risk of being affected worse by kovid-19 and ending up in death because they suffer from severe forms of the disease, “says Radosavljević.
And the only protection, as with the coronavirus, is a kind of quarantine. At the time of greatest air pollution, such as winter, you should not go outside. And if necessary, you need to be careful with the masks.
“The mask I wear protects against covid infection, but not against air pollution. The real nano masks, N95 and the whole series, only protect against air pollution,” explains Radosavljevic.
Although Belgrade has been fighting pollution for years, for cleaner air in the capital, with the city’s budget proposal for 2021, the city government has forecast 45 million dinars less than this year’s budget. And the Republican government, Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, in her presentation announced a new legal and strategic framework to solve this problem. Until then, the burden of responsibility for polluted air, as well as for the spread of the coronavirus, appears to fall on citizens.
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