A new study has found that wildfire smoke may greatly increase susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.The findings of the study appeared in the 'Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology'. The research was led by the Center for Genomic Medicine at the Desert Research Institute (DRI), Washoe County Health District (WCHD), and Renown Health (Renown) in Reno, Nv. The DRI-led research team set out to examine whether smoke from 2020 wildfires in the Western US was associated with an increase in SARS-CoV-2 infections in Reno."Our results showed a substantial increase in the COVID-19 positivity rate in Reno during a time when we were affected by heavy wildfire smoke from California wildfires," said Daniel Kiser, M.S., co-lead author of the study and assistant research scientist of data science at DRI.