Refereed journal article or data article (A1)

Analysing role of airborne particulate matter in abetting SARS-CoV-2 outbreak for scheming regional pandemic regulatory modalities




List of AuthorsBhadola Pradeep, Chaudhary Vishal, Markandan Kalaimani, Talreja Rishi Kumar, Aggarwal Sumit, Nigam Kuldeep, Tahir Mohammad, Kaushik Ajeet, Rustagi Sarvesh, Khalid Mohammad

PublisherACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE

Publication year2023

JournalEnvironmental Research

Journal name in sourceENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH

Journal acronymENVIRON RES

Article number 116646

Volume number236

Issue number1

Number of pages11

ISSN0013-9351

DOIhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2023.116646

URLhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2023.116646


Abstract
The mutating SARS-CoV-2 necessitates gauging the role of airborne particulate matter in the COVID-19 outbreak for designing area-specific regulation modalities based on the environmental state-of-affair. To scheme the protocols, the hotspots of air pollutants such as PM2.5, PM10, NH3, NO, NO2, SO2, and and environmental factors including relative humidity (RH), and temperature, along with COVID-19 cases and mortality from January 2020 till December 2020 from 29 different ground monitoring stations spanning Delhi, are mapped. Spearman correlation coefficients show a positive relationship between SARS-COV-2 with particulate matter (PM2.5 with r > 0.36 and PM10 with r > 0.31 and p-value <0 center dot 001). Besides, SARS-COV-2 transmission showed a substantial correlation with NH3 (r = 0.41), NO2 (r = 0.36), and NO (r = 0.35) with a p-value <0.001, which is highly indicative of their role in SARS-CoV-2 transmission. These outcomes are associated with the source of PM and its constituent trace elements to understand their overtone with COVID-19. This strongly validates temporal and spatial variation in COVID-19 dependence on air pollutants as well as on environmental factors. Besides, the bottlenecks of missing latent data, monotonous dependence of variables, and the role air pollutants with secondary environmental variables are discussed. The analysis set the foundation for strategizing regional-based modalities considering environmental variables (i.e., pollutant concentration, relative humidity, temperature) as well as urban and transportation planning for efficient control and handling of future public health emergencies.


Last updated on 2023-29-09 at 08:53