Association Between Short-term Exposure to Air Pollution and COVID-19 Infection: Evidence from China

Overview

Journal Sci Total Environ

Date 2020 Apr 22

PMID 32315904

Citations 483

Authors

Yongjian Zhu

Jingui Xie

Fengming Huang

Liqing Cao

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The novel coronavirus pneumonia, namely COVID-19, has become a global public health problem. Previous studies have found that air pollution is a risk factor for respiratory infection by carrying microorganisms and affecting body's immunity. This study aimed to explore the relationship between ambient air pollutants and the infection caused by the novel coronavirus. Daily confirmed cases, air pollution concentration and meteorological variables in 120 cities were obtained from January 23, 2020 to February 29, 2020 in China. We applied a generalized additive model to investigate the associations of six air pollutants (PM, PM, SO, CO, NO and O) with COVID-19 confirmed cases. We observed significantly positive associations of PM, PM, NO and O in the last two weeks with newly COVID-19 confirmed cases. A 10-μg/m increase (lag0-14) in PM, PM, NO, and O was associated with a 2.24% (95% CI: 1.02 to 3.46), 1.76% (95% CI: 0.89 to 2.63), 6.94% (95% CI: 2.38 to 11.51), and 4.76% (95% CI: 1.99 to 7.52) increase in the daily counts of confirmed cases, respectively. However, a 10-μg/m increase (lag0-14) in SO was associated with a 7.79% decrease (95% CI: -14.57 to -1.01) in COVID-19 confirmed cases. Our results indicate that there is a significant relationship between air pollution and COVID-19 infection, which could partially explain the effect of national lockdown and provide implications for the control and prevention of this novel disease.

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