Abstract
The outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has hugely impacted the world and becomes a global public threat. To prevent the spread of COVID-19, human activities are largely restricted in China in early February, 2020. The influence of strict COVID-19 control policies on air quality and the potential influence of particulate matter concentration on COVID-19 infection in China are of great interest. This study analyzes the concentrations of six major air pollutants in 366 urban areas across mainland China during January 1 to April 30 in 2017–2020. Results show that strict COVID-19 control policies have significantly improved the air quality in many provinces. Compared to 2019, national mean concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2 and CO in 2020 decrease by 14%, 15%, 12%, 16% and 12%, respectively, while the concentration of O3 increases by 9%. Generally, the diurnal variation of PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations remains unchanged during COVID-19 and their concentrations are high in the morning and evening while low in the afternoon. Correlation analysis shows that daily COVID-19 infections are positively correlated with PM2.5 concentration in many provinces, indicating a potential risk of aerosol transmission in high PM2.5 environment. Thus it is suggested to stay at home in highly polluted days and go out in the afternoon to reduce the risk of infection due to aerosol transmission.
Highlights
A novel and contagious pneumonia broke out in the late of 2019. It has been identified as a novel strain of coronavirus, which belongs to the same virus family of acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) (Zheng et al, 2020)
We explores the potential correlation between PM2.5 concentrations and COVID-19 infections and give some suggestions to the public to minimize the risk of COVID-19 infections due to aerosol transmission
air quality index (AQI) = max(SAQI1, SAQI2, ..., SAQIp) where SAQIp represents the sub-AQI; Cp denotes the concentration of pollutant p; Clow and Chigh are the concentration breakpoints lower and higher than Cp, respectively; Ilow and Ihigh are the index breakpoint corresponding to Clow and Chigh, respectively
Summary
A novel and contagious pneumonia broke out in the late of 2019. it has been identified as a novel strain of coronavirus, which belongs to the same virus family of acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) (Zheng et al, 2020). The concentration of six major air pollutions (PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, CO and O3) measured in 366 urban areas in mainland China during COVID-19 is compared to previous years. X denotes the average concentration of air pollutant and the subscript represents the year. This ratio shows the degree of major pollutant reduction due to COVID-19 control policies. The relationship between daily COVID-19 infections and particulate matter concentration may exhibit spatial variation due to changing aerosol source, control policy and other factors. To represent the varying COVID-19 – PM relationship, we use a mixed effects model to analyze the influence of PM concentration on COVID-19 infections. Matchups with daily COVID-19 infection number ≥ 1 are included in this mixed effect model analysis and the total number of matchups during the studying period is 4351
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