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. 2020 Jul:186:109639.
doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109639. Epub 2020 May 7.

First data analysis about possible COVID-19 virus airborne diffusion due to air particulate matter (PM): The case of Lombardy (Italy)

E Bontempi  1
Affiliations

First data analysis about possible COVID-19 virus airborne diffusion due to air particulate matter (PM): The case of Lombardy (Italy)

E Bontempi. Environ Res. 2020 Jul.

Abstract

The severe cases of COVID-19 infections in Italy, and notably in Lombardy (mainly in Brescia and Bergamo areas), registered at the beginning of March 2020, occurred after a period of PM10 pollution, that exceeded the concentration of 50 μg/m3 (the attention limit) for several days. The two events were supposed to be correlated, also based on the limited information available about the new virus. Despite that clear indications about the role of particulate matter (PM) in the virus mechanism dispersion cannot be found in literature, some researchers supposed that PM can act as virus carrier, promoting its diffusion through the air. This paper, for the first time, analyses the PM10 situation in Lombardy (from 10th February to March 27, 2020), several days before the sanitary emergency explosion. The data of the detected infection cases are reported and discussed parallelly. As a comparison, the situation of Piedmont, located near to the Lombardy is also presented. Data are reported for Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona, Lodi, Milano, Monza-Brianza, Pavia (Lombardy), Alessandria, Vercelli, Novara, Biella, Asti, and Torino (Piedmont). The results show that it is not possible to conclude that COVID-19 diffusion mechanism also occurs through the air, by using PM10 as a carrier. In particular, it is shown that Piedmont cities, presenting lower detected infections cases in comparison to Brescia and Bergamo in the investigated period, had most sever PM10 pollution events in comparison to Lombardy cities. This first study may serve as a reference to better understand and predict the factors affecting the COVID-19 diffusion and transmission routes, focusing on the role of air particulate matter in the atmosphere.

Keywords: Air pollution; COVID-19; Lombardy; PM(10).

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest 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
a: Data of the confirmed infections cases in some Lombardy and Piedmont cities. Data are reported, for each area, starting from the first day of detected infections (generally at the beginning of March 2020) till to 28th March. 1 b: Data of the confirmed infections cases in some Lombardy and Piedmont cities, normalized by inhabitants number. Data correspond to those already shown in Fig. 1a, but they are divided by the population of corresponding area.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
PM10 daily mean concentrations for the selected Lombardy Region cities. Data about PM10 concentrations are reported starting from February 10, 2020, considering that the sanitary emergency appeared nearly 20 days later. This allows to take into account the incubation time of the virus, that is reported to be of 7–14 days.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
a: Confirmed infection cases, versus the detection day, and corresponding PM10 concentration values, for Brescia, Bergamo, Milano, Monza-Brianza, Cremona, Lodi, and Pavia. Based on the reported results of all the considered area the upper limit of PM10 scale was settled to 100 μg/m3 3 b: Confirmed infection cases, versus the detection day, and corresponding PM10 concentration values, for Asti, Torino, Alessandria, Biella, Novara, and Vercelli. Based on the reported results of all the considered area the upper limit of PM10 scale was settled to 100 μg/m3.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
a: Confirmed infection cases, versus the detection day, and corresponding PM10 concentration values, for Brescia, Bergamo, Milano, Monza-Brianza, Cremona, Lodi, and Pavia. Based on the reported results of all the considered area the upper limit of PM10 scale was settled to 100 μg/m3 3 b: Confirmed infection cases, versus the detection day, and corresponding PM10 concentration values, for Asti, Torino, Alessandria, Biella, Novara, and Vercelli. Based on the reported results of all the considered area the upper limit of PM10 scale was settled to 100 μg/m3.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
a: Number of days of PM10 exceeding 50 μg/m3 from 10th February to March 10, 2020 for the selected Lombardy and Piedmont areas. The cities identification can be found in Fig. 4b (or 4c). 4 b: COVID-19 infection cases detected on March 12, 2020 for the selected Lombardy and Piedmont areas. 4c: Percent of population resulted positive to COVID-19 on March 12, 2020 for the selected Lombardy and Piedmont areas.
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