Short-Term Effects of Ambient Ozone, PM2.5, and Meteorological Factors on COVID-19 Confirmed Cases and Deaths in Queens, New York

Abstract

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2, has been rapidly increasing in the United States. Boroughs of New York City, including Queens county, turn out to be the epicenters of this infection. According to the data provided by the New York State Department of Health, most of the cases of new COVID-19 infections in New York City have been found in the Queens county where 42,023 people have tested positive, and 3221 people have died as of 20 April 2020. Person-to-person transmission and travels were implicated in the initial spread of the outbreaks, but factors related to the late phase of rapidly spreading outbreaks in March and April are still uncertain. A few previous studies have explored the links between air pollution and COVID-19 infections, but more data is needed to understand the effects of short-term exposures of air pollutants and meteorological factors on the spread of COVID-19 infections, particularly in the U.S. disease epicenters. In this study, we have focused on ozone and PM2.5, two major air pollutants in New York City, which were previously found to be associated with respiratory viral infections. The aim of our regression modeling was to explore the associations among ozone, PM2.5, daily meteorological variables (wind speed, temperature, relative humidity, absolute humidity, cloud percentages, and precipitation levels), and COVID-19 confirmed new cases and new deaths in Queens county, New York during March and April 2020. The results from these analyses showed that daily average temperature, daily maximum eight-hour ozone concentration, average relative humidity, and cloud percentages were significantly and positively associated with new confirmed cases related to COVID-19; none of these variables showed significant associations with new deaths related to COVID-19. The findings indicate that short-term exposures to ozone and other meteorological factors can influence COVID-19 transmission and initiation of the disease, but disease aggravation and mortality depend on other factors.

Effects of long-term exposure to air pollutants on the spatial spread of COVID-19 in Catalonia, Spain

“…Secondarily, part of the discrepancy could also be due to the probability family used for the response variable (Gaussian in Zhu et al, 2020;and in Li H et al, 2020;Poisson in Jiang et al, 2020). Adhikari et al (2020), who evaluated the influence between meteorological variables and air pollutants on the incidence and mortality from COVID-19, found that, among pollutants, daily maximum eight-hour ozone concentrations were significantly and positively associated with new confirmed cases related to COVID-19 (although not so PM 2.5 ). However, neither meteorological variables nor air pollutants showed significant associations with deaths related to COVID-19.…”

“…With regard to short-term (i.e. acute) exposure (measured as the temporal variation of air pollutants), Xu et al (2020) (in 33 locations in China), Zhu et al (2020) (in 120 cities in China), Jiang et al (2020) (3 cities in China), Li H et al (2020) (2 cities in China) and Adhikari et al (2020) (in Queens, New York) found significantly positive associations between the short-term exposure to air pollutants with newly confirmed cases. Furthermore, as Domingo et al (2020) point out, in a very recent review, the results of most of the studies suggest that the long-term exposure to air pollutants might lead to more severe and lethal forms of Most of the studies evaluating socioeconomic and demographic variables (four of the six studies) considered population density (Coccia, 2020;Ahmadi et al, 2020;Pequeno et al, 2020;and You et al 2020).…”

The role of air pollution (PM and NO2) in COVID-19 spread and lethality: A systematic review

“…Several observations report a significant association between ambient concentrations of PM 2.5 ( Adhikari and Yin, 2020 ; Bashir et al, 2020 ; Fattorini and Regoli, 2020 ; Frontera et al, 2020 ; Jiang et al, 2020 ; Li et al, 2020 ; Vasquez-Apestegui et al, 2020 ; Wu et al, 2020 ; Yao et al, 2020 ; Zhu et al, 2020 ; Zoran et al, 2020a ) and PM 10 ( Bashir et al, 2020 ; Coccia, 2020b ; Fattorini and Regoli, 2020 ; Jiang et al, 2020 ; Li et al, 2020 ; Yao et al, 2020 ; Zhu et al, 2020 ; Zoran et al, 2020a ) with COVID-19 pandemic across the most affected countries: China, Italy and U.S.A (see Table 1 ).…”

Association Between Air Pollution in Lima and the High Incidence of COVID-19: Findings from a Post Hoc Analysis

“…Several studies have explored the association between SARS-CoV-2 transmission and the COVID-19 mortality rate with environmental factors, air pollution being among them [ 6 , 7 ]. In New York, which is the epicenter of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States, it was observed that short-term exposure to ozone and other meteorological factors can influence SARS-CoV-2 transmission and susceptibility to infection, but was not associated with disease exacerbation and mortality, which seem to be dependent on other factors [ 7 ].…”