Environmental perspective of COVID-19: Atmospheric and wastewater environment in relation to pandemic

Abstract

The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a major challenge to health systems worldwide. Recently, numbers of epidemiological studies have illustrated that climate conditions and air pollutants are associated with the COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide. Researches also suggested that the SARS-CoV-2 could be detected in fecal and wastewater samples. These findings provided the possibility of preventing and controlling the COVID-19 pandemic from an environmental perspective. With this review, the main purpose is to summarize the relationship between the atmospheric and wastewater environment and COVID-19. In terms of the atmospheric environment, the evidence of the relationship between atmospheric environment (climate factors and air pollution) and COVID-19 is growing, but currently available data and results are various. It is necessary to comprehensively analyze their associations to provide constructive suggestions in responding to the pandemic. Recently, large numbers of studies have shown the widespread presence of this virus in wastewater and the feasibility of wastewater surveillance when the pandemic is ongoing. Therefore, there is an urgent need to clarify the occurrence and implication of viruses in wastewater and to understand the potential of wastewater-based epidemiology of pandemic. Overall, environmental perspective-based COVID-19 studies can provide new insight into pandemic prevention and control, and minimizes the economic cost for COVID-19 in areas with a large outbreak or a low economic level.

The outbreak of COVID-19 in Taiwan in late spring 2021: combinations of specific weather conditions and related factors

“…1 ). Since the environmental condition is one of the factors affecting the COVID-19 pandemic and has been proven to affect the spread by many studies (Hu et al 2021 ; Rahman et al 2020 ), and the weather in Taiwan in May 2021 is unusually hot and uncomfortable, we propose that the weather factors mentioned above caused people to feel sick and be more vulnerable to becoming ill, and accordingly named them “unease environmental condition factor (UECF).” Under the UECF, people tend to gather indoors with air-conditioning, and there is a significantly positive correlation between the daily confirmed COVID-19 case and household electricity consumption in Taiwan during this period ( p < 0.01, r = 0.70 in reported cases and r = 0.71 in backlog separately, data obtained from Taiwan Electric Power Co., Ltd.; see Fig. 3 ).…”

Medical Waste from COVID-19 Pandemic—A Systematic Review of Management and Environmental Impacts in Australia

“…In the past two years, the risk categorization of COVID-19 waste has been changing due to various concerns as the pandemic progressed. While there are other categories of medical waste, infectious waste, including those from COVID-19, are particularly harmful because they contain pathogens that possess the risk of infection to humans with long-term effects [27]. Due to the ever-increasing number of COVID-19 infections worldwide, the dangers of COVID-19 transmission through (a) direct and indirect human-to-human contacts, (b) SARS-CoV-2 infective droplets in the atmosphere, and (c) COVID-19 waste from healthcare facilities concerned with diagnosis, research, or treatment and waste generated by COVID-19 infected or suspected persons isolated/treated in households or other facilities have become apparent [1,25,27,55].…”

“…Another environmental concern due to the pandemic is the shedding of coronavirus in stool, which could lead to contamination of community drinking, surface and ground waters if sewage lines are not properly constructed or fail to operate properly [27,106,107]. Sewage overflow during heavy rainfall can cause human exposure from sewage water.…”

“…Hence, special attention should be paid to handling COVID-19 waste during this pandemic [23,24,26]. Hu et al [27], and Cobourn et al [28] added that massive amounts of medical waste from COVID-19 are continuously generated and disposed into the natural environment; and inappropriate waste management practices can increase the risk of contamination, particu-larly in developing countries. In recent years, there has been increasing public awareness on the need to improve medical waste management practices and its segregation from general waste management [1,14,29,30].…”

Walkable City and Military Enclaves: Analysis and Decision-Making Approach to Support the Proximity Connection in Urban Regeneration

“…Their increasing application since 2020 [50] seemingly relies on the findings of epidemiologists regarding the causes of COVID-19-related rate of infections. People living in areas with high air pollution index and extreme meteorological conditions have higher risk of mortality [51][52][53] and COVID-19 in particular hits deprived neighborhoods [54,55] and exacerbates urban issues such as socio-spatial segregation [56].…”