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. 2023 Jan 1;216(Pt 3):114662.
doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.114662. Epub 2022 Oct 30.

Five waves of the COVID-19 pandemic and green-blue spaces in urban and rural areas in Poland

Roman Suligowski  1 , Tadeusz Ciupa  2
Affiliations

Five waves of the COVID-19 pandemic and green-blue spaces in urban and rural areas in Poland

Roman Suligowski et al. Environ Res. .

Abstract

Several waves of COVID-19 caused by different SARS-CoV-2 variants have been recorded worldwide. During this period, many publications were released describing the influence of various factors, such as environmental, social and economic factors, on the spread of COVID-19. This paper presents the results of a detailed spatiotemporal analysis of the course of COVID-19 cases and deaths in five waves in Poland in relation to green‒blue spaces. The results, based on 380 counties, reveal that the negative correlation between the indicator of green‒blue space per inhabitant and the average daily number of COVID-19 cases and deaths was clearly visible during all waves. These relationships were described by a power equation (coefficient of determination ranging from 0.83 to 0.88) with a high level of significance. The second important discovery was the fact that the rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths were significantly higher in urban counties (low values of the green-blue space indicator in m2/people) than in rural areas. The developed models can be used in decision-making by local government authorities to organize anti-COVID-19 prevention measures, including local lockdowns, especially in urban areas.

Keywords: COVID-19 cases and deaths; COVID-19 waves; Relationships; green‒blue spaces.

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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

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Study area.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Daily cases (A) and deaths (B) caused by COVID-19 (including the five separate pandemic waves) against the background of the pandemic course and number of vaccinations (C) in Poland.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Average daily number of COVID-19 cases (people/100 km2/day) in successive waves and since the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020–May 2022).
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Average daily number of COVID-19 deaths (people/100 km2/day) in successive waves and since the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020–May 2022).
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Green‒blue spaces per inhabitant in Polish counties (m2 per person): (A) spatial distribution, (B) box and whisker plot of city and land counties.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Relationship between the rate of green‒blue space per inhabitant (m2 per person) in all Polish counties and the average daily number of cases (A) and deaths (B) in the five waves of the COVID-19 pandemic (people/100 km2/day). Green represents land counties, and red represents city counties.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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