Temporal trends of carbon monoxide (CO) and radon (222Rn) tracers of urban air pollution

Impact assessment of COVID-19 global pandemic on water, environment, and humans

One of the most significant threats to global health since the Second World War is the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to COVID-19 widespread social, environmental, economic, and health concerns. Other unfavourable factors also emerged, including increased trash brought on by high consumption of packaged foods, takeout meals, packaging from online shopping, and the one-time use of plastic products. Due to labour shortages and residents staying at home during mandatory lockdowns, city municipal administrations' collection and recycling capacities have decreased, frequently damaging the environment (air, water, and soil) and ecological and human systems. The COVID-19 challenges are more pronounced in unofficial settlements of developing nations, particularly for developing nations of the world, as their fundamental necessities, such as air quality, water quality, trash collection, sanitation, and home security, are either non-existent or difficult to obtain. According to reports, during the pandemic's peak days (20 August 2021 (741 K cases), 8 million tonnes of plastic garbage were created globally, and 25 thousand tonnes of this waste found its way into the ocean. This thorough analysis attempts to assess the indirect effects of COVID-19 on the environment, human systems, and water quality that pose dangers to people and potential remedies. Strong national initiatives could facilitate international efforts to attain environmental sustainability goals. Significant policies should be formulated like good quality air, pollution reduction, waste management, better sanitation system, and personal hygiene. This review paper also elaborated that further investigations are needed to investigate the magnitude of impact and other related factors for enhancement of human understanding of ecosystem to manage the water, environment and human encounter problems during epidemics/pandemics in near future.

Cumulative effects of air pollution and climate drivers on COVID-19 multiwaves in Bucharest, Romania

Over more than two years of global health crisis due to ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Romania experienced a five-wave pattern. This study aims to assess the potential impact of environmental drivers on COVID-19 transmission in Bucharest, capital of Romania during the analyzed epidemic period. Through descriptive statistics and cross-correlation tests applied to time series of daily observational and geospatial data of major outdoor inhalable particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 µm (PM2.5) or ≤ 10 µm (PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), ozone (O₃), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), carbon monoxide (CO), Aerosol Optical Depth at 550 nm (AOD) and radon (²²²Rn), we investigated the COVID-19 waves patterns under different meteorological conditions. This study examined the contribution of individual climate variables on the ground level air pollutants concentrations and COVID-19 disease severity. As compared to the long-term average AOD over Bucharest from 2015 to 2019, for the same year periods, this study revealed major AOD level reduction by ~28 % during the spring lockdown of the first COVID-19 wave (15 March 2020-15 May 2020), and ~16 % during the third COVID-19 wave (1 February 2021-1 June 2021). This study found positive correlations between exposure to air pollutants PM2.5, PM10, NO₂, SO₂, CO and ²²²Rn, and significant negative correlations, especially for spring-summer periods between ground O₃ levels, air temperature, Planetary Boundary Layer height, and surface solar irradiance with COVID-19 incidence and deaths. For the analyzed time period 1 January 2020-1 April 2022, before and during each COVID-19 wave were recorded stagnant synoptic anticyclonic conditions favorable for SARS-CoV-2 virus spreading, with positive Omega surface charts composite average (Pa/s) at 850 mb during fall- winter seasons, clearly evidenced for the second, the fourth and the fifth waves. These findings are relevant for viral infections controls and health safety strategies design in highly polluted urban environments.

Impacts of exposure to air pollution, radon and climate drivers on the COVID-19 pandemic in Bucharest, Romania: A time series study

During the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic disease, like several countries, Romania experienced a multiwaves pattern over more than two years. The spreading pattern of SARS-CoV-2 pathogens in the Bucharest, capital of Romania is a multi-factorial process involving among other factors outdoor environmental variables and viral inactivation. Through descriptive statistics and cross-correlation analysis applied to daily time series of observational and geospatial data, this study aims to evaluate the synergy of COVID-19 incidence and lethality with air pollution and radon under different climate conditions, which may exacerbate the coronavirus' effect on human health. During the entire analyzed period 1 January 2020-21 December 2021, for each of the four COVID-19 waves were recorded different anomalous anticyclonic synoptic meteorological patterns in the mid-troposphere, and favorable stability conditions during fall-early winter seasons for COVID-19 disease fast-spreading, mostly during the second, and the fourth waves. As the temporal pattern of airborne SARS-CoV-2 and its mutagen variants is affected by seasonal variability of the main air pollutants and climate parameters, this paper found: 1) the daily outdoor exposures to air pollutants (particulate matter PM2.5 and PM10, nitrogen dioxide-NO₂, sulfur dioxide-SO₂, carbon monoxide-CO) and radon - ²²²Rn, are directly correlated with the daily COVID-19 incidence and mortality, and may contribute to the spread and the severity of the pandemic; 2) the daily ground ozone-O₃ levels, air temperature, Planetary Boundary Layer height, and surface solar irradiance are anticorrelated with the daily new COVID-19 incidence and deaths, averageingful for spring-summer periods. Outdoor exposure to ambient air pollution associated with radon is a non-negligible driver of COVID-19 transmission in large metropolitan areas, and climate variables are risk factors in spreading the viral infection. The findings of this study provide useful information for public health authorities and decision-makers to develop future pandemic diseases strategies in high polluted metropolitan environments.

Impact of air pollutants on COVID-19 transmission: a study over different metropolitan cities in India

India is affected strongly by the Coronavirus and within a short period, it becomes the second-highest country based on the infected case. Earlier, there was an indication of the impact of pollution on COVID-19 transmission from a few studies with early COVID-19 data. The study of the effect of pollution on COVID-19 in Indian metropolitan cities is ideal due to the high level of pollution and COVID-19 transmission in these cities. We study the impact of different air pollutants on the spread of coronavirus in different cities in India. A correlation is studied with daily confirmed COVID-19 cases with a daily mean of ozone, particle matter (PM) in size ≤ 10 μ m, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide of different cities. It is found that particulate matter concentration decreases during the nationwide lockdown period and the air quality index improves for different Indian regions. A correlation between the daily confirmed cases with particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10 both) is observed. The air quality index also shows a positive correlation with the daily confirmed cases for most of the metropolitan Indian cities. The correlation study also indicates that different air pollutants may have a role in the spread of the virus.

An updated systematic review on the association between atmospheric particulate matter pollution and prevalence of SARS-CoV-2

On December 31, 2019, the novel human coronavirus (COVID-19) was emerged in Wuhan city, China, which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). There is a much controversial debate about the major pathways of transmission of the virus including airborne route. The present work is a systematic literature review (SR) aimed to assess the association of air pollution especially particulate matter pollution in the transmission and acceleration of the spread of SARS-CoV-2. The systematic literature search was performed to identify the available studies published through October 31, 2020 concerning the transmission of the disease and particulate matter air pollution in four international electronic databases. From the results of the included studies, there are suggestions that atmospheric particulate matter pollution plays a role in the SARS-CoV-2 spread, but the literature has not confirmed that it enhances the transmission although some studies have proposed that atmospheric particulate matter can operate as a virus carrier, promoting its spread. Therefore, although PM concentration alone cannot be effective in spreading the COVID-19 disease, other meteorological and environmental parameters including size of particles in ambient air, weather conditions, wind speed, relative humidity (RH) and temperature are involved. Therefore, it is necessary to consider all influencing parameters to prevent the spreading of COVID-19 disease. More studies are required to strengthen the scientific evidence and support more definitive conclusions.

Assessing the relationship between ground levels of ozone (O3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) with coronavirus (COVID-19) in Milan, Italy

This paper investigates the correlation between the high level of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 infection accelerated transmission and lethality, and surface air pollution in Milan metropolitan area, Lombardy region in Italy. For January-April 2020 period, time series of daily average inhalable gaseous pollutants ozone (O3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), together climate variables (air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, precipitation rate, atmospheric pressure field and Planetary Boundary Layer) were analyzed. In spite of being considered primarily transmitted by indoor bioaerosols droplets and infected surfaces or direct human-to-human personal contacts, it seems that high levels of urban air pollution, and climate conditions have a significant impact on SARS-CoV-2 diffusion. Exhibited positive correlations of ambient ozone levels and negative correlations of NO2 with the increased rates of COVID-19 infections (Total number, Daily New positive and Total Deaths cases), can be attributed to airborne bioaerosols distribution. The results show positive correlation of daily averaged O3 with air temperature and inversely correlations with relative humidity and precipitation rates. Viral genome contains distinctive features, including a unique N-terminal fragment within the spike protein, which allows coronavirus attachment on ambient air pollutants. At this moment it is not clear if through airborne diffusion, in the presence of outdoor and indoor aerosols, this protein "spike" of the new COVID-19 is involved in the infectious agent transmission from a reservoir to a susceptible host during the highest nosocomial outbreak in some agglomerated industrialized urban areas like Milan is. Also, in spite of collected data for cold season (winter-early spring) period, when usually ozone levels have lower values than in summer, the findings of this study support possibility as O3 can acts as a COVID-19 virus incubator. Being a novel pandemic coronavirus version, it might be ongoing during summer conditions associated with higher air temperatures, low relative humidity and precipitation levels.

Assessing the relationship between surface levels of PM2.5 and PM10 particulate matter impact on COVID-19 in Milan, Italy

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a highly pathogenic, transmittable and invasive pneumococcal disease caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which emerged in December 2019 and January 2020 in Wuhan city, Hubei province, China and fast spread later on the middle of February 2020 in the Northern part of Italy and Europe. This study investigates the correlation between the degree of accelerated diffusion and lethality of COVID-19 and the surface air pollution in Milan metropolitan area, Lombardy region, Italy. Daily average concentrations of inhalable particulate matter (PM) in two size fractions PM2.5, PM10 and maxima PM10 ground level atmospheric pollutants together air quality and climate variables (daily average temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, atmospheric pressure field and Planetary Boundary Layer-PBL height) collected during 1 January-30 April 2020 were analyzed. In spite of being considered primarily transmitted by indoor bioaerosols droplets and infected surfaces, or direct human-to-human personal contacts, it seems that high levels of urban air pollution, weather and specific climate conditions have a significant impact on the increased rates of confirmed COVID-19 Total number, Daily New and Total Deaths cases, possible attributed not only to indoor but also to outdoor airborne bioaerosols distribution. Our analysis demonstrates the strong influence of daily averaged ground levels of particulate matter concentrations, positively associated with average surface air temperature and inversely related to air relative humidity on COVID-19 cases outbreak in Milan. Being a novel pandemic coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) version, COVID-19 might be ongoing during summer conditions associated with higher temperatures and low humidity levels. Presently is not clear if this protein "spike" of the new coronavirus COVID-19 is involved through attachment mechanisms on indoor or outdoor airborne aerosols in the infectious agent transmission from a reservoir to a susceptible host in some agglomerated urban areas like Milan is.