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. 2020 Sep:188:109775.
doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109775. Epub 2020 Jun 13.

Commercial exchanges instead of air pollution as possible origin of COVID-19 initial diffusion phase in Italy: More efforts are necessary to address interdisciplinary research

Elza Bontempi  1
Affiliations

Commercial exchanges instead of air pollution as possible origin of COVID-19 initial diffusion phase in Italy: More efforts are necessary to address interdisciplinary research

Elza Bontempi. Environ Res. 2020 Sep.

Abstract

This communication aims to advocate a more coordinate activity mainly between medical and environmental scientists to clarify some confusing information related to airborne diffusion mechanisms of COVID-19. In this frame it is suggested that parameters other than environmental pollution (accounting for pollution-to-human transmission mechanisms), as for example parameters involving commercial exchanges (accounting for human-to-human transmission mechanisms), should be considered to better justify the difference in the initial diffusion of virus in Italy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares that she has no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Trade import (a) and export (b) data provided by ISTAT, concerning Italian regions with East Asia in 2018. Geographical classification of Italy, provided by ISTAT is: (1) North-West, (2) North-East, (3) Centre, (4) South, (5) Islands.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Global reported infection cases detected at the beginning of the sanitary crisis (March 10, 2020), in all the Italy, reported in accord with the geographical areas provided by ISTAT for trade data (see Fig. 1).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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