A physician-led nonprofit based in Washington, DC, which examines potential health threats from climate change and environmental toxins, has raised concerns that emissions from oil and gas production could be causing more severe effects of COVID-19.
While Physicians for Social Responsibility was unable to say definitively that drilling operations were to blame for high numbers of COVID-19 in some oil-heavy counties in New Mexico and Colorado, the group sent a letter to newly elected President Joe Biden, asking his administration to prioritize further studies into the possible link between drilling-related air pollution and COVID-19 infection rates and outcomes.
The request comes as Biden signed an executive order last week halting oil and gas leasing on federal lands.
Edward Ketyer of Pennsylvania, one of the authors of the nonprofit’s study, said, “We wanted to see if, in the middle of a global pandemic caused by a serious respiratory virus, whether air pollution from oil and gas development was making the situation worse for residents living or working nearby. We wanted to make people aware of the growing evidence of a link between air pollution and COVID-19 incidence and poor outcomes.”
Ketyer and Lisa McKenzie examined five counties in New Mexico—Eddy, Lea, Rio Arriba, San Juan, and Sandoval—and five in Colorado, all of which had significant oil and gas operations. In New Mexico, they discovered the number of COVID-19 cases was higher than expected in three counties and lower in two. But they found only one county with a higher than expected number of deaths.
“Disproportionately high levels of cases were observed among people aged 20 to 49 years and Native Americans,” the report said.
It cited 202 deaths at the time of the study in San Juan County, one of New Mexico’s hardest hit from the pandemic, compared with an expected death count of 16, based on population and other factors. The number of deaths there has since grown to 377.
Ketyer and McKenzie’s findings of case numbers were similar in the Colorado counties, but there were more COVID-19 deaths than expected.