COVID-19 Fatality: Statistical Evidence to Engender the Need for Focal Shift from Air Pollutants to Multi-dimensional Intervention

Abstract

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, several researchers worldwide have suggested chronic exposure to air pollutants viz. PM2.5, NO2, and O-3 as one of the influencing factors for the increased rate of fatality. However, most of these studies lacked a comprehensive international outlook. A strong correlation on a regional scale might require further investigations to evaluate the transboundary validity. Therefore, the current study aims to explore the statistical soundness of association of COVID-19 fatality with PM2.5, NO2, and O-3 concentration levels across 463 air quality monitoring stations located in 35 selected cities from USA, India and European Regions (France, Germany and Italy). An aggregated open-source air quality data source was used to download the PM2.5, NO2, and O-3 concentration for > 900 days in the selected cities. The median of this long-term exposure was tested against the COVID-19 fatality rates. A strength of association parameter, omega(2), and the coefficient of determination, R-2, were used to evaluate the transboundary association. omega(2) results indicated that only 24.6%, 0.03% and 15.4% of the variation in COVID-19 fatality rates could be explained using PM2.5, NO2, and O-3 concentrations respectively for all the analyzed cities. Further, low values of R 2 between pollutant concentrations and COVID-19 fatality rates corroborated the results (0.27 for PM2.5, 0.00038 for NO2 and 0.18 for O-3). These observations strongly suggest a focal shift towards the inclusion of more explanatory variables and an extensive multi-disciplinary work is required in order to understand the cause of COVID-19 fatality.