Air Pollution and Covid-19 Work Together in Chester
The Delaware Valley Resource Recovery Facility trash incinerator in Chester, run by Covanta, has been criticized for polluting the surrounding neighborhood. Delaware County’s contract with the facility expires in April 2022. Photo: Stefan Roots
Raise your hand if you believe racial minorities are more likely to live closer to industrial pollution, and to work in business sectors with higher exposure to pollution. I think I see a few hands out there.
Studies show that long-term exposure to air pollution can increase a person’s chances of developing cardiovascular, metabolic, and pulmonary diseases. Researchers have shown that air pollution can worsen many respiratory and cardiovascular diseases — including Covid-19.
“Historically, air pollution has been linked with worse health outcomes, including higher mortality, due to other respiratory viruses, such as influenza,” writes Stephen Andrew Mein in a recent article in The Annals of the American Thoracic Society. “Now, new research on Covid-19 adds further evidence of the adverse effects of ambient air pollution and the urgent need to address the public health crisis of pollution.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, researchers have explored possible mechanisms to explain the links between air pollution and heightened Covid-19 risks. It turns out that two types of air pollution — particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide — promote the creation of an enzyme that SARS-CoV-2 targets and uses to get into human cells. This could account for the association between air pollution and worse Covid outcomes.
Mein argues for stricter air quality standards, and for taking action to end the disproportionate amount of air pollution in neighborhoods where marginalized people live. He calls the Covid-19 pandemic a wake-up call.
The government of Pennsylvania, however, claims that a cause-and-effect relationship between air pollution and more severe Covid has not been established. Consequently, the Department of Environmental Protection continues to grant permits for hazardous waste facilities in Chester.
Governments will bring air-polluting waste facilities to certain cities, write permits for them to operate, and tell you that those industries are your friends. On its own, governments will not take them away, no matter how harmful they turn out to be.
Only when enough people get angry enough to organize a movement to stop pollution in their community will there ever be a chance that it will go away.
Stefan Roots blogs at Chester Matters
