Does Air Quality Influence the Spread of the SARS - COV2 in Metropolitan Cities? - A Case Study from Urban India

Abstract

COVID 19 pandemic has gradually established itself as the worst pandemic in the last hundred years around the world after initial outbreak in China, including India. To prevent the spread of the infection the Government implemented lockdown measure initially from 24th March to 14th April, 2020 which was later extended to 3rd May, 2020. This lockdown imposed restrictions in human activities, vehicular movements and industrial functioning; resulting in reduced pollution level in the cities. This study was initiated with the objective to identify the change in the air quality of seven megacities in India and to determine any correlation between the active COVID cases with the air quality parameters. Air quality dataset of the most common parameters (PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, NH3, CO and Ozone) along with air quality index for 70 stations of seven megacities (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Chandigarh) were analysed. Comparison was made between AQI of pre lockdown and during lockdown periods. The results obtained indicate sufficient improvement in air quality during the period of the lockdown. For the next part of the study active COVID cases during the lockdown were compared to the air quality change of that period. A significant correlation between active COVID case and change in the air quality was observed for Delhi and Kolkata with 0.51 and 0.64 R2 values respectively. A positive correlation was also observed between air pollutant parameters and incidents of COVID cases in this study. Thus from the analysis it was identified that air quality index improved considerably as a result of the nationwide lockdown however, there was no significant impact of this improvement on the infection rate of the prevailing pandemic.