Does Environment has any role in recovery from COVID-19 pandemic? A case study from India.

Abstract

The present study has investigated the role of meteorology and air quality for recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Using Pearson’s correlation method, we look into if there is any significant association occurs between the district level recovery case counts and different remote sensing based environmental variables. Among weather parameters, only precipitation and air temperature found to be significantly correlated with recovery situation. However, all the pollutants’ concentration was negatively correlated with count of recovery cases. It depicts that air quality might has greater importance in recovery from this disease. During late monsoon onwards, recovery rate was getting more than the infections which indicate that lesser temperature and good rainfall could help the air to be freshen. Through air pollution was greater during winter and post monsoon than the summer season in India the higher recovery rate was counted during post-monsoon and winter which suggest that patients may require lesser temperate ambient for better recovery. Spatial patterns also suggest that north-eastern hilly region followed by districts located in the northern mountain had better recovery where the pollutants’ concentration was also quite lower during the study period. Therefore, improving air quality with proper preventive precaution could help to combat the pandemic situation in India.