Higher airborne pollen concentrations correlated with increased SARS-CoV-2 infection rates, as evidenced from 31 countries across the globe
Damialis, Athanasios (Technical University of Munich)
Gilles-Stein, Stefanie (Helmholtz Centre Munich. Institute of Environmental Medicine)
Sofiev, Mikhail (Finnish Meteorological Institute)
Sofieva, Viktoria (Finnish Meteorological Institute)
Kolek, Franziska Kolek (Technical University of Munich)
Bayr, Daniela (Technical University of Munich)
Plaza, Maria P. (Technical University of Munich)
Leier-Wirtz, Vivien (Technical University of Munich)
Kaschuba, Sigrid (Technical University of Munich)
Ziska, Lewis (Technical University of Munich)
Bielory, Leonard (Rutgers University. Center for Environmental Prediction)
Makra, László (University of Szeged. Faculty of Agriculture)
Trigo Pérez, M. Mar (Universidad de Málaga. Departamento de Botánica y Fisiología Vegetal)
Traidl-Hoffmann, Claudia (Technical University of Munich)
COVID-19/POLLEN study group

Data:	2021
Descripció:	10 p.
Resum:	Pollen exposure weakens the immunity against certain seasonal respiratory viruses by diminishing the antiviral interferon response. Here we investigate whether the same applies to the pandemic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is sensitive to antiviral interferons, if infection waves coincide with high airborne pollen concentrations. Our original hypothesis was that more airborne pollen would lead to increases in infection rates. To examine this, we performed a cross-sectional and longitudinal data analysis on SARS-CoV-2 infection, airborne pollen, and meteorological factors. Our dataset is the most comprehensive, largest possible worldwide from 130 stations, across 31 countries and five continents. To explicitly investigate the effects of social contact, we additionally considered population density of each study area, as well as lockdown effects, in all possible combinations: without any lockdown, with mixed lockdown-no lockdown regime, and under complete lockdown. We found that airborne pollen, sometimes in synergy with humidity and temperature, explained, on average, 44% of the infection rate variability. Infection rates increased after higher pollen concentrations most frequently during the four previous days. Without lockdown, an increase of pollen abundance by 100 pollen/m3 resulted in a 4% average increase of infection rates. Lockdown halved infection rates under similar pollen concentrations. As there can be no preventive measures against airborne pollen exposure, we suggest wide dissemination of pollen-virus coexposure dire effect information to encourage high-risk individuals to wear particle filter masks during high springtime pollen concentrations.
Ajuts:	Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte FPU15/01668
Nota:	Jordina Belmonte (ORCID 0000-0002-6419-9595) i Concepción de Linares Fernández (ORCID 0000-0002-2047-3337), de l'ICTA, formen part del COVID-19/POLLEN study group.
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	COVID-19 ; Pollen ; Viral infection ; Aerobiology
Publicat a:	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 118, No. 12 (March 2021) , art. e2019034118, ISSN 1091-6490

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2019034118
PMID: 33798095

10 p, 2.1 MB

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