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I'm guessing the 9 million figure is from this article from April 2021, which was widely reported in the news. If you Google "fossil fuel deaths by year" it's referenced in all five of the first results.
– LShaver
Commented Mar 22, 2022 at 13:51
25

Your distinction between "directly kills" and "causes premature deaths" is identical for covid.
– Tech Inquisitor
Commented Mar 22, 2022 at 19:22
9

@TechInquisitor no, it is not. The claim is that the modern industrialized world has air pollution which can cause someone to die a few months sooner on average. However, that can be misleading, as the average lifespan is a lot longer than it was in pre-industrial times due to better food distribution and medicine. So if someone would have died at 50 in the middle ages, would have died at 92 in modern society without air pollution but dies at 90 due to air pollution, would it be better in the middle ages? On the other hand, with covid you can die at 30 while otherwise you could have reached 90
– vsz
Commented Mar 23, 2022 at 5:14
4

@vsz According to the cdc, in the US, all deaths involving covid for individuals 30-40 years old account for less than 2% of deaths for all ages involving covid, which is a similar total number of deaths due to other diseases in that age group. Considering that comorbidities are a serious confounding factor, it is fairly safe to say that very very (I only put 2, not 3 smh) few 30 year olds died to covid who would have lived to 90.
– BlackThorn
Commented Mar 23, 2022 at 16:36
8

@DanRomik agreed, we shouldn't be debating about covid deaths in the comments, but this is still relevant to your answer. The question is about relating covid deaths to pollution deaths, so the semantics between the two are very much on topic. Your answer only addressed the semantics of pollution deaths while ignoring the fact that many of the same issues are present in covid death accounting.
– BlackThorn
Commented Mar 23, 2022 at 17:05

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