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Munich (dpa) - According to a study, heavy pollen counts can increase the corona risk.
If there is a lot of pollen in the outside air, the number of infections rises, reports an international team led by researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Helmholtz Zentrum München in the specialist magazine “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” (“PNAS”).
In places without lockdown regulations, the infection rate rose by an average of four percent if the number of pollen in the air increased by 100 per cubic meter.
In some German cities during the study period up to 500 pollen per cubic meter were found per day - the infection rates rose by more than 20 percent.
The explanation for the observation, according to researchers: When pollen flies, the body's defenses react in a weakened form to viruses in the respiratory tract.
The body then produces, among other things, fewer so-called antiviral interferons.
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The daily infection rates correlated with the pollen count in countries with and without lockdown.
If lockdown rules applied in the areas examined, the number of infections was halved on average with a comparable pollen concentration in the air.
The authors analyzed data on pollen exposure and Sars-CoV-2 infection rates from 130 regions in 31 countries on five continents.
They also took into account demographic factors and environmental conditions, including temperature, humidity, population density and the degree of lockdown.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210309-99-745272 / 2
Pnas study on the Internet