Abstract
Objectives: COVID-19 pandemic raised several queries on the relationship between the environment pol-lution and occurrence of new cases and deaths. This study aims to explore the effect of environmental pollution, particulate matter (PM 2.5 mu m), carbon monoxide (CO) and Ozone (O-3) on daily cases and daily deaths due to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in a largest metropolitan city London, United Kingdom.
Methods: For this study, we selected London, one of the highly populated capitals, and markedly affected due to COVID-19 pandemic. The data on the SARS-CoV-2 daily new cases and deaths were recorded from UK-gov Web "Coronavirus COVId-19 in the UK, 2020". The daily environmental pollutants PM 2.5 mu m, CO and O-3 were recorded from the metrological web "(London Air Pollution, Air Quality Index-AQI, 2020)". The daily cases, deaths, PM 2.5 mu m, CO and O-3 were documented from the date of the occurrence of the first case of SARS-CoV-2 in London, February 24 to November 2, 2020.
Results: The SARS-CoV-2 cases and deaths were positively related with environmental pollutants, PM2.5, O-3 and CO levels. Additionally, with 1 mm increase in PM2.5 the number of cases and deaths sig-nificantly increased by 1.1% and 2.3% respectively. A 1 unit increase in CO level significantly increased the number of cases and deaths by 21.3% and 21.8% respectively. A similar trend was observed in O-3, with 1-unit increase, the number of cases and deaths were significantly increased respectively by 0.8% and 4.4%. Conclusions: Environmental pollutants, PM2.5, CO and O-3 have a positive association with an increased number of SARS-CoV-2 daily cases and daily deaths in London, UK. Environmental pollution management authorities must implement necessary policies and assist in planning to minimize the environmental pol-lution and COVID-19 pandemic. (C) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University.