New Delhi fears the combined effect of virus and pollution

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Each year, the dreaded season of pollution brings patients with the onset of winter to pulmonologists in New Delhi, but this time it risks multiplying the effects of another calamity: the coronavirus.

In his small clinic “Breathe Better”, Dr Davinder Kundra worries about the 20 million inhabitants of the capital. Every day, he has at least one suspected case among his patients whom he sends to be tested for the coronavirus.

“Several studies around the world have linked air pollution to more cases and deaths of the coronavirus,” Dr Kundra told AFP, examining the radio of a patient with pneumonia.

“Microscopic pollutants carry the virus far into the lungs. Delhi suffers a double whammy ”.

The pressure could redouble on the hospital system of the most polluted capital in the world.

“Exposed to increased pollution, patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are likely to develop more severe forms of the infection,” observes Dr. Kundra.

New Delhi is experiencing frightening concentrations of PM2.5, fine particles that can enter the bloodstream through the lungs, leading to asthma, lung cancer or heart disease.

And at the same time, the capital this week recorded a daily record of some 7,000 new cases of coronavirus. Some forecasts expect more than 12,000 cases in the near future, raising concerns about an emergency health situation in this congested capital.

With 8.5 million cases in total, India is the second country in the world in number of coronavirus cases behind the United States. The number of people who have died from Covid-19 in India exceeds 126,000.

Fireworks prohibited

Doctors fear the impact next Saturday of human concentrations expected for the great Hindu festival of Diwali, the festival of lights.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has banned traditional fireworks during these festivities and initiated proceedings to get private hospitals to make more beds available for Covid patients.

Water cannons have been deployed in the capital to try to pin the polluting particles to the ground.

But environmental activists like Vimlendu Jha deem the authorities’ efforts insufficient and demand the shutdown of construction sites and certain power plants.

Harvard researchers have established, according to a study published in early November, that each additional microgram of PM2.5 per m3 corresponds to an increase of some 11% in the death rate from Covid-19.

Delhi and much of northern India are covered each year in early winter with a toxic fog consisting of a mixture of fumes from agricultural burns, exhaust gases and industrial emissions, trapped by cooler temperatures and light winds.

Doctors in New Delhi have little recourse but to recommend wearing masks and using air purifiers indoors – which many cannot afford.

“The pollution has arrived faster this year and looks worse,” notes Navjot Kaur, a resident of the capital. She chose to go to work by scooter to avoid the risk of catching the virus on public transport, but suddenly finds herself more exposed to the toxic fog: “when I arrive, my eyes itch and I have to spray them with ‘water’.

Others wonder if we should not simply leave because the coronavirus also “attacks the lungs”, like this 38-year-old computer scientist, Naveen Malhotra, who comes out of his pulmonologist.

“I’m just waiting for the opportunity to move to a less polluted place,” he says. “I don’t really know if it’s possible, but there is nothing else to do.”

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