Brazil has been hit hard by covid. They have many different geographic areas there. And now Brazilian scientists noticed that there were fewer patients in the mountainous regions. The thought arose that some strong highlanders live there, or the virus is worse transmitted in the highlands.
I must say that the Brazilian mountains are not Tibet. Brazilian scientists observed only people who climbed barely 1000 meters. That is, there cannot even be altitude sickness there.
Scientists thought it might be due to ultraviolet radiation.
On the one hand, ultraviolet light burns viruses, and they die quickly.
On the other hand, the more UV light, the more vitamin D is produced in the skin, lack of which have already tried to associate with covid.
There is also an opinion that it is in the air. The higher the mountains, the thinner the air. Literally, gas molecules fly farther apart. And if at sea level a virus or droplets of snot with a virus jump over these molecules like over stones in a stream, then in the rarefied air the droplets are held with difficulty. Well, it’s like airplanes cannot fly in the upper atmosphere, because they do not have enough lift there.
Many would like to bring here the effect of high altitude on hemoglobin, on saturation and all that, but the height was not very high.
It was the Chinese who found something in their mountaineers living at an altitude of 3000 meters above sea level. For the Brazilians, everything was more modest. There is no question of any adaptation to low oxygen levels.
In short, they live there in Brazil, people live in clusters, but they were at times less likely to get sick with covid if they were sitting on mountains within 1000 meters. Even weak and old people tolerate such a height well. And it would be interesting to send our people from risk groups to the mountains. Maybe they'll be safer there.
In general, I noticed a couple of times on a trip that at an altitude of more than 1500 meters, some are already getting a little bad. Have you met this?
