display
Munich (dpa) - A study on a possible increase in the corona risk with high pollen count leads to uncertainty in certain patients.
Associations and institutions reported on Wednesday on many inquiries, especially from asthmatics.
The German Pollen Information Service Foundation (PID) announced that there had been worried inquiries from people who suffer from hay fever or asthma.
"Allergy and non-allergy sufferers should not develop any worries or even fears that contact with pollen in the outside air would preferentially suffer a coronavirus infection," explained the foundation.
Telephones and video consultation hours at the German allergists have been running hot since the study was reported, said the President of the Association of German Allergists, Ludger Klimek.
"I do not believe that the study allows a statement to be made about an increased corona risk for the general population when pollen is flying."
In pollen allergy sufferers with damaged mucous membranes, the risk of infection could be increased.
However, this is not the case with well-treated allergy sufferers.
display
The data presented in the international study led by researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Helmholtz Zentrum München sounded convincing and extremely worrying at first, said Klimek.
In the study published in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” (“PNAS”), pollen is only one of many possible influencing factors on the infection process.
The researchers had analyzed data on pollen and infection rates from 130 regions in 31 countries in spring 2020.
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.
The daily infection rates correlated with the pollen count in countries with and without lockdown.
However, at that time the pandemic and pollen season coincided in many places.
Christian Bergmann from the Charité in Berlin said that the researchers had used the best available data, but the exact relationships between cause and effect could not be clarified.
display
Klimek and Bergmann referred to their own data, which not only consider the first wave of the pandemic in spring 2020, but also the whole year for Berlin, Wiesbaden and Munich.
In the early flowering season 2020, they would have recognized a similar relationship between pollen count and infection rates.
"In the second wave in autumn / winter 2020, however, the number of infections rose even more sharply and faster than in the first wave, but pollen was largely absent here."
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210310-99-768190 / 2
Pnas study on the Internet
display
TUM announcement
Medical Association of German Allergologists