pollution from before the pandemic also affected what happened after people became sick. scientists saw that more people died from covid-19 in places with large amounts of air pollution. one team of scientists from martin luther university halle-wittenberg looked at air pollution information from satellites and statistics on covid-19 deaths in italy, france, germany and spain and saw that places with large amounts of nitrogen dioxide pollution had more people die from covid-19. nitrogen dioxide can damage the lungs.