Page 108 - COVID-19: The Great Reset

will suffer higher numbers of hospitalizations and numbers of
deaths. [108] A consensus has formed in the medical and public

community that there is a synergistic effect between air pollution
exposure and the possible occurrence of COVID-19, and a worse
outcome when the virus does strike. The research, still embryonic
but expanding fast, hasn’t proved yet that a link of causation

exists, but it unambiguously exposes a strong correlation between
air pollution and the spread of the coronavirus and its severity. It
seems that air pollution in general, and the concentration of

particulate matter in particular, impair the airways – the lungs’ first
line of defence – meaning that people (irrespective of their age)
who live in highly polluted cities will face a greater risk of catching
COVID-19 and dying from it. This may explain why people in
Lombardy (one of Europe’s most polluted regions) who had

contracted the virus were shown to be twice as likely to die from
COVID-19 than people almost anywhere else in Italy.

1.5.1.3. Lockdown and carbon emissions

It is too early to define the amount by which global carbon
dioxide emissions will fall in 2020, but the International Energy
Agency (IEA) estimates in its Global Energy Review 2020 that
they will fall by 8%. [109] Even though this figure would correspond

to the largest annual reduction on record, it is still miniscule
compared to the size of the problem and it remains inferior to the
annual reduction in emissions of 7.6% over the next decade that
the UN thinks is necessary to hold the global rise in temperatures

below 1.5°C. [110]

Considering the severity of the lockdowns, the 8% figure looks
rather disappointing. It seems to suggest that small individual
actions (consuming much less, not using our cars and not flying)
are of little significance when compared to the size of emissions

generated by electricity, agriculture and industry, the “big-ticket
emitters” that continued to operate during the lockdowns (with the
partial exception of some industries). What it also reveals is that

the biggest “offenders” in terms of carbon emissions aren’t always
those often perceived as the obvious culprits. A recent
sustainability report shows that the total carbon emissions

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