In the shadow of Trump administration’s announcement that COVID may kill between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans, new research suggests that this is more likely to happen to Americans already breathing dirty air.

Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, issued a study entitled Exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States in which they found that an increase of only 1 microgram per cubic meter in fine particulate matter (known as PM2.5)

corresponds to a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate.

What are the major sources of particulate pollution? Inequitable Exposure to Air Pollution from Vehicles in New York State, a 2019 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, links PM2.5 exposure to pollution from cars, trucks, and buses.