I'm not sure this is an unambiguous miss. There are massive numbers of deaths from pollution, many from cancer: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n23/david-wallace-wells/...

But a world that struggles to acknowledge the death toll from covid or climate change unsurprisingly may also simply ignore the death toll from pollution as well, until the system collapses due to failing to address any issues at all.