Research: Strong diffusion of pollen increases the risk of coronavirus infection

The strongest diffusion of pollen into the air causes more infections than coronavirus. However, they are fewer where restrictive measures such as lockdown apply, according to scientists, reports APE.

“If there is a lot of pollen in the outside air, the number of coronavirus infections increases. In areas where there were no lockdown restrictions, the contamination rate increased by an average of 4% when the number of pollen grains in the air increased to 100 per cubic meter. In some German cities “In fact, in which up to 500 pollen grains per cubic meter per day were measured, the rate of coronavirus infection increased by more than 20%”, says a study by an international scientific team led by researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Center. Health and Environmental Research Helmholtz (Helmholtz Zentrum), also Munich, published in the American Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The explanation according to scientists is this: Due to pollen, the body’s defenses react weakly to respiratory viruses. The body then produces, among other things, less anti-viral interferons and is more vulnerable to coronavirus.

That’s why environmentalist Claudia Trinidle-Hoffman, one of the researchers on the team, advises people in high-risk groups to monitor their pollen predictions in the coming months and make sure to wear dust masks, such as dust masks. FFP2.

Scientists from the Technical University of Munich and the Helmholtz Center analyzed data from 130 regions in 31 countries on five continents to determine if there was a link between increased pollen concentrations in the air and rates of Sars-CoV-2 infection. Daily coronavirus infection rates were correlated by researchers with pollen counts in countries with and without lockdown

The reason for this research was that the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic coincided in the northern hemisphere with the increased concentration of tree pollen last spring. The researchers concluded that about 44% of the deviations from the mean coronavirus infection rates could be explained by airborne pollen.

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