Initial COVID-19 Transmissibility and Three Gaseous Air Pollutants (NO2, SO2, and CO): A Nationwide Ecological Study in China

Jinjun Ran; Shi Zhao; Lefei Han; Zhihang Peng; Maggie H Wang; Yulan Qiu; Daihai He

doi:10.3389/fmed.2020.575839

Initial COVID-19 Transmissibility and Three Gaseous Air Pollutants (NO₂, SO₂, and CO): A Nationwide Ecological Study in China

Front Med (Lausanne). 2020 Sep 24:7:575839. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2020.575839. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Jinjun Ran^{1

2}, Shi Zhao^{3

4}, Lefei Han⁵, Zhihang Peng⁶, Maggie H Wang^{3

4}, Yulan Qiu², Daihai He⁷

Affiliations

¹ Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
² School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
³ Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
⁴ Shenzhen Research Institute, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China.
⁵ School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
⁶ School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
⁷ Department of Applied Mathematics, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.

Abstract

In this study, we conducted an ecological study to examine their effects in the early phase of the pandemic (from December 2019 to February 2020) in China. We found that the associations between the average concentrations of NO₂, SO₂, and CO and the COVID-19 transmissibility are not statistically clear.

Keywords: COVID-19; China; ecological study; gaseous air pollutant; transmissibility.