Air pollution and COVID-19 severity.

Air pollution may elevate the risk of infection and severity ( e.g. , intensive care unit (ICU) admission and death) from COVID-19 by modifying host susceptibility to infection and disease severity, and by elevating the risk of comorbidities [1]. An emerging body of toxicological and experimental evidence has provided insights on how acute [2] and chronic [3] air pollution exposure could play a role in COVID-19 infection and severity. There is also substantial epidemiological evidence on the effects of long-term air pollution exposure in the incidence and mortality of COVID-19 [1]. However, most epidemiological data is based on ecological studies (susceptible to group-level and cross-level confounding), passive and not active case ascertainment and outcome characterization (susceptible to case-ascertainment bias), and poor assessment of air pollution exposure (a potential for a misclassification bias). Air pollution abatement would be a very effective way to protect our population from the impact of COVID-19