Air Pollution and Coronavirus : A Dangerous Combination
It is clear that all around the United States , Americans suffer chronic disease and early death from breathing air pollution . Equally clear is that those living in proximity and inhaling the chemical pollution produced at every point of oil and gas operations are also at higher risk of experiencing adverse health impacts . The impairment of respiratory tract defenses and reduced lung function arising from long-term exposure to air pollution increase the risk of contracting coronavirus and developing complications from it , especially in people suffering from chronic medical conditions . known as the standardized incidence ratio ( or SIR ) and the standardized mortality ratio ( or SMR ), respectively . The methods we used are detailed on the next page . Because COVID-19 incidence and mortality vary by age and race / ethnicity as an indicator of vulnerability to COVID-19 exposure ( see Figures , pages 9-12 ), we adjusted the SIRs and SMRs for age and race . The data sources we used were publicly available for county-level and state-level data on population , demography , and COVID-19 rates .
This report examines the possibility that the invisible particles and vapors coming from oil and gas production sites , by increasing the pollution burden on the respiratory system of local residents , increases their vulnerability to the novel coronavirus . If this is the case , they are a dangerous and deadly combination .
Table 1 : Popula-on Counts and 2020 Oil and Natural Gas Produced in Colorado and New Mexico Coun-es County
Popula-on Count
Colorado ( total popula , on = 5,761,907 )
Oil Produced as of August 2020 ( Barrels )
Natural Gas Produced as from Jan through August 2020 ( million cubic feet )
Adams County 517,440 2,094,665 18,079,608 Denver Julesburg Broomfield County and City 70,799 557,218 5,540,822 Denver Julesburg Garfield County 60,103 25,473,457 262,245,138 Piceance La Plata County 56,353 19,983,872 146,431,864 San Juan Weld County 323,252 99,304,230 627,958,864 Denver Julesburg New Mexico ( total popula , on = 2,101,730 ) Eddy County 58,162 82,786,314 426,887,164 Permian Lea County 70,832 101,837,823 334,538,149 Permian Rio Arriba County 39,118 619,071 152,208,968 San Juan Sandoval County 145,153 1,443,077 6,537,294 San Juan San Juan County 128,046 2,568,798 220,047,734 San Juan
Basin
Methodology
Our goal in reviewing the currently available evidence on COVID-19 is to determine if Colorado and New Mexico populations living in areas with active oil and gas production sites may be at a higher risk for COVID-19 transmission , morbidity ( disease ) and mortality ( death ). One element of our review was to determine if Colorado and New Mexico counties with active oil and gas production sites were experiencing more COVID-19 cases and deaths than would be expected , based on state-level rates . The results of this initial ecological analysis could then generate hypotheses for future studies .
We selected five counties in Colorado and five in New Mexico to study ( Table 1 ); they include the top three oil- and gas-producing counties in each state and counties in the major oil- and gas-producing basins in each state . For each county , we used a standardized ratio method to compare the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases and deaths observed to the cumulative number of COVID cases and deaths that would be expected if state-wide rates prevailed . These are
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