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. 2020 Jul 20:727:138704.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138704. Epub 2020 Apr 15.

Association between short-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 infection: Evidence from China

Yongjian Zhu  1 , Jingui Xie  2 , Fengming Huang  3 , Liqing Cao  4
Affiliations

Association between short-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 infection: Evidence from China

Yongjian Zhu et al. Sci Total Environ. .

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 (PM2.5, PM10, SO2, CO, NO2 and O3) with COVID-19 confirmed cases. We observed significantly positive associations of PM2.5, PM10, NO2 and O3 in the last two weeks with newly COVID-19 confirmed cases. A 10-μg/m3 increase (lag0-14) in PM2.5, PM10, NO2, and O3 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/m3 increase (lag0-14) in SO2 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.

Keywords: Air pollution; COVID-19; Generalized additive model; Novel coronavirus pneumonia.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Unlabelled Image
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Locations of 120 cities and cumulative COVID-19 confirmed cases in each city as of February 29, 2020.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Percentage change (%) and 95% CI of daily COVID-19 confirmed cases associated with a unit increase in pollutant concentration using single-pollutant models. Units are 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, O3 and 1 mg/m3 in CO.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Percentage change (%) and 95% CI of daily COVID-19 confirmed cases associated with a unit increase in pollutant concentration using single-pollutant models after excluding Wuhan. Units are 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, O3 and 1 mg/m3 in CO.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Percentage change (%) and 95% CI of daily COVID-19 confirmed cases associated with a unit increase in pollutant concentration using single and two-pollutant models. Units are 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, O3 and 1 mg/m3 in CO.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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