How do low wind speeds and high levels of air pollution support the spread of COVID-19?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apr.2020.10.002Get rights and content

Highlights

  • High air pollution can interact with viral agents and increase numbers of COVID-19 infected individuals and deaths.

  • Cities with high wind speed and low air pollution have a lower number of infected individuals of COVID-19.

  • High wind speed improves the dispersion of particulate matters mixed with viral agents (SARS-CoV-2) and mitigates the diffusion of COVID-19 in cities.

  • Little wind generates a stagnation of particulate compounds mixed with viral agents that can support the diffusion of COVID-19 in cities.

  • Improving air quality and ecosystem reduces risk factors associated with COVID-19 infected individuals and deaths.

Abstract

The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is generating a high number of infected individuals and deaths. One of the current questions is how climatological factors and environmental pollution can affect the diffusion of COVID-19 in human society. This study endeavours to explain the relation between wind speed, air pollution and the diffusion of COVID-19 to provide insights to constrain and/or prevent future pandemics and epidemics. The statistical analysis here focuses on case study of Italy and reveals two main findings: 1) cities with high wind speed have lower numbers of COVID-19 related infected individuals; 2) cities located in hinterland zones (mostly those bordering large urban conurbations) with little wind speed and frequently high levels of air pollution had higher numbers of COVID-19 related infected individuals. Results here suggest that high concentrations of air pollutants, associated with low wind speeds, may promote a longer permanence of viral particles in polluted air of cities, thus favouring an indirect means of diffusion of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), in addition to the direct diffusion with human-to-human transmission dynamics.

Keywords

Air pollution
Particulate matter
Air quality
Atmospheric pollution
Wind speed
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease
SARS-CoV-2
Environment and Health
Urban environment
Public health
Environmental policy

Cited by (0)

Peer review under responsibility of Turkish National Committee for Air Pollution Research and Control.

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