Air pollution and temperature are associated with increased COVID-19 incidence: A time series study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.05.076Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Air quality is tightly associated with COVID-19 transmission.

  • PM2.5 and NO2 strongly promote COVID-19 transmission.

  • Temperature is inversely associated with COVID-19 transmission.

Abstract

Objectives

Although COVID-19 is known to be caused by human-to-human transmission, it remains largely unclear whether ambient air pollutants and meteorological parameters could promote its transmission.

Methods

A retrospective study was conducted to study whether air quality index (AQI), four ambient air pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO2 and CO) and five meteorological variables (daily temperature, highest temperature, lowest temperature, temperature difference and sunshine duration) could increase COVID-19 incidence in Wuhan and XiaoGan between Jan 26th to Feb 29th in 2020.

Results

First, a significant correlation was found between COVID-19 incidence and AQI in both Wuhan (R2 = 0.13, p < 0.05) and XiaoGan (R2 = 0.223, p < 0.01). Specifically, among four pollutants, COVID-19 incidence was prominently correlated with PM2.5 and NO2 in both cities. In Wuhan, the tightest correlation was observed between NO2 and COVID-19 incidence (R2 = 0.329, p < 0.01). In XiaoGan, in addition to the PM2.5 (R2 = 0.117, p < 0.01) and NO2 (R2 = 0.015, p < 0.05), a notable correlation was also observed between the PM10 and COVID-19 incidence (R2 = 0.105, p < 0.05). Moreover, temperature is the only meteorological parameter that constantly correlated well with COVID-19 incidence in both Wuhan and XiaoGan, but in an inverse correlation (p < 0.05).

Conclusions

AQI, PM2.5, NO2, and temperature are four variables that could promote the sustained transmission of COVID-19.

Keywords

COVID-19
SARS-CoV-2
Ambient air pollutant
Temperature
AQI

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1

These authors contributed equally to this work.