You will be shown a claim related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the abstract of a biomedical research paper. Each sentence from the abstract will be on a separate line. Your task is to return a JSON object with two fields:

- "verdict": The fact-checking verdict. If the information in the abstract supports the claim, write "SUPPORT". If the abstract contradicts the claim, write "CONTRADICT".
- "evidence": An array of sentences providing evidence for the verdict. Please copy all relevant sentences verbatim from the abstract.

For instance, if the model were given the claim "the COVID vaccine is safe for healthy adults", the output might be
{
  "verdict": "SUPPORT",
  "evidence": ["Our findings indicate that the risks of severe COVID vaccine side effects are low for healthy adults."]
}

Claim: Urban air pollution may reduce covid-19 case-fatality and mortality rates in the united states

Abstract:
Background: The novel human coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has claimed more than 600,000 lives worldwide, causing tremendous public health, social, and economic damages.
While the risk factors of COVID-19 are still under investigation, environmental factors, such as urban air pollution, may play an important role in increasing population susceptibility to COVID-19 pathogenesis.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional nationwide study using zero-inflated negative binomial models to estimate the association between long-term (2010-2016) county-level exposures to NO2, PM2.5 and O3 and county-level COVID-19 case-fatality and mortality rates in the US.
We used both single and multipollutant models and controlled for spatial trends and a comprehensive set of potential confounders, including state-level test positive rate, county-level healthcare capacity, phase-of-epidemic, population mobility, population density, sociodemographics, socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, behavioral risk factors, and meteorology.
Results: 3,659,828 COVID-19 cases and 138,552 deaths were reported in 3,076 US counties from January 22, 2020 to July 17, 2020, with an overall observed case-fatality rate of 3.8%.
County-level average NO2 concentrations were positively associated with both COVID-19 case-fatality rate and mortality rate in single-, bi-, and tri-pollutant models.
When adjusted for co-pollutants, per inter-quartile range (IQR) increase in NO2 (4.6 ppb), COVID-19 case-fatality rate and mortality rate were associated with an increase of 11.3% (95% CI 4.9% to 18.2%) and 16.2% (95% CI 8.7% to 24.0%), respectively.
We did not observe significant associations between COVID-19 case-fatality rate and long-term exposure to PM2.5 or O3, although per IQR increase in PM2.5 (2.6 ug/m3) was marginally associated with 14.9% (95% CI: 0.0% to 31.9%) increase in COVID-19 mortality rate when adjusted for co-pollutants.
Discussion: Long-term exposure to NO2, which largely arises from urban combustion sources such as traffic, may enhance susceptibility to severe COVID-19 outcomes, independent of long-term PM2.5 and O3 exposure.
The results support targeted public health actions to protect residents from COVID-19 in heavily polluted regions with historically high NO2 levels.
Continuation of current efforts to lower traffic emissions and ambient air pollution may be an important component of reducing population-level risk of COVID-19 case-fatality and mortality.
{"verdict": "CONTRADICT", "evidence": ["While the risk factors of COVID-19 are still under investigation, environmental factors, such as urban air pollution, may play an important role in increasing population susceptibility to COVID-19 pathogenesis.", "The results support targeted public health actions to protect residents from COVID-19 in heavily polluted regions with historically high NO2 levels."]}