Researchers were looking for a connection between wildfire smoke in the air and COVID sickness/death in three states: Oregon, California, and Washington. Those three states were chosen because they suffered the most from wildfire air pollution last year in our country. We already know this air pollution is connected to other health problems, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), so they were specifically looking to see if COVID cases increase in the areas that lived with this smoke. They gathered data about the particulates in the air during the 2020 fire season and looked at subsequent cases/deaths. They found the wildfires amplified the effect of smoke on COVID cases for up to four weeks after the exposure. This is directly applicable to all of us in Southern Oregon who live with wildfire smoke in the summer. Read the article in the Harvard Gazette here:
Wildfire smoke linked to increase in COVID-19 cases and deaths – Harvard Gazette
