Influence of air pollution and meteorological factors on the spread of COVID-19 in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region and air quality during the outbreak

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of weather conditions, air pollutants, and the air quality index (AQI) on daily cases of COVID-19 in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR). In this research, we collected data from January 1 to March 30, 2020 (90 days). This study used secondary data of meteorological and air pollutant parameters obtained from the Pollution Control Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment as well as daily confirmed COVID-19 case data in the BMR obtained from the official webpage of the Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand. We employed descriptive statistics, and Spearman and Kendall rank correlation tests were used to investigate the associations of weather variables, air pollutants, AQI with daily confirmed COVID-19 cases. Our findings indicate that CO, NO 2 , SO 2 , O 3 PM 10 , PM 2.5 , AQI have a significantly negative association with daily confirmed COVID-19 cases in the BMR, whereas meteorological parameters such as temperature, relative humidity (RH), absolute humidity (AH) and wind speed (WS) showed significant positive associations with daily confirmed COVID-19 cases in the BMR. Our study is a useful supplement to encourage regulatory bodies to promote environmental strategies, as air pollution regulation could be a sustainable policy for mitigating the harmful effects of air pollutants. Furthermore, this study provides new insights into the relationship between daily meteorological factors, AQI, and air pollutants and daily confirmed COVID-19 cases in the BMR. These data may provide useful information to the public health authorities and decision makers in Thailand, as well as to the World Health Organization (WHO), in order to set proper strategic aimed at reducing the impact of the COVID-19. Future studies concerning SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses should investigate the possibility of infectious droplet dispersion in indoor and outdoor air during and after the epidemic outbreak.

The Association Between COVID-19, Air Pollution, and Climate Change

“…Several studies discussed the relationship between O 3 and NO x and COVID-19 but it was unclear in those studies. The current research discovered both a negative ( 26 ) and a positive ( 25 ) correlation between NO x and COVID-19 in various parts of the world. However, as the role in flagging SARS-CoV-2 transmission, O 3 was importantly correlated with COVID-19 ( 27 ).…”

“…The SARS coronavirus's stability at low humidity can support its spread in communities in subtropical climates (such as Hong Kong) during the spring (42). For WS, the relationship with COVID-19 was identical to those of humidity and temperature, which have both positive (26) and negative (43) relationships. WS, on the other hand, may potentially affect SARS-CoV-2 in an indoor rather than outdoor environment among symptomatic and asymptotic cases due to sneezing and coughing in population-dense areas.…”

“…Wu et al ( 38 ) and To et al ( 39 ), for example, discovered that rising temperatures were associated with a decrease in daily new cases of COVID-19 in Brazil and Canada. Other variables, such as RH (%), AH (g/m 3 ), and WS (m/s), had a positive relationship with the number of COVID-19 cases in many countries, including Thailand and Turkey ( 26 , 40 ). Furthermore, relative humidity was found to be negatively correlated with daily new COVID-19 cases by Wu et al ( 38 ).…”

“…Unfortunately, there has been relatively little research into the relationship between CO and SO 2 . Sangkham et al (26) discovered that increases in CO and SO 2 were correlated with decreases in the daily number of COVID-19 cases, while another study recently indicated that 1 g/m 3 CO is associated with a 15.11% increase in the daily count of confirmed COVID-19 cases (28). Meanwhile, a SO 2 concentration of 10 g/m 3 was associated with a 7.79% decrease in the regular number of reported cases in China's 120 cities (28).…”

“…Another evidence that might correlate the relationship between climate and COVID-19 is using meteorological factors including the temperature, Relative Humidity (RH), AH, and Wind Speed (WS). Most studies in many countries, including Thailand, Singapore, India, and China, found a positive relationship between temperature and the daily number of COVID-19 cases ( 26 , 36 , 37 ). Several research, however, found a negative association between temperature and COVID-19 cases.…”