The relationship between PM10 and SO2 exposure and Covid-19 infection rates in Turkey using nomenclature of territorial units for statistics level 1 regions

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic, which has been affecting the world since December 2019, has become one of the biggest problems of the 21st century. There are studies stating that the contagiousness of the Covid-19 pandemic, which is transmitted from person to person, increases more with environmental factors such as air pollution, and accordingly, there is an increase in the number of cases. In this study, a panel regression model to investigate the effect of air pollution concentrations such as PM10 and SO2 as environmental factors and population density on the monthly mean number of Covid-19 cases for 12 regions at the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS) level 1 in Turkey between June 2020 and November 2020, and a linear regression model to investigate the effect at the regional level. we used. Based on the model results, we concluded that a small increase in air pollution indicators led to an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases in Turkey and its regions. It is very important to identify preventable environmental factors in order to prevent and minimize the effects of respiratory tract diseases and rapidly spreading pandemic diseases such as Covid-19. Accordingly, we can conclude that countries should take some measures, especially on air pollution, in order to develop public health and pandemic/disease management strategies and to reduce the risk of respiratory diseases.