Spike in pollution to ignite the bursting of COVID-19 second wave is more dangerous than spike of SAR-CoV-2 under environmental ignorance in long term: a review

Abstract

Specific areas in many countries such as Italy, India, China, Brazil, Germany and the USA have witnessed that air pollution increases the risk of COVID-19 severity as particulate matters transmit the virus SARS-CoV-2 and causes high expression of ACE2, the receptor for spike protein of the virus, especially under exposure to NO 2 , SO 2 and NOx emissions. Wastewater-based epidemiology of COVID-19 is also noticed in many countries such as the Netherlands, the USA, Paris, France, Australia, Spain, Italy, Switzerland China, India and Hungary. Soil is also found to be contaminated by the RNA of SARS-CoV-2. Activities including defecation and urination by infected people contribute to the source for soil contamination, while release of wastewater containing cough, urine and stool of infected people from hospitals and home isolation contributes to the source of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in both water and soil. Detection of the virus early before the outbreak of the disease supports this fact. Based on this information, spike in pollution is found to be more dangerous in long-term than the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. It is because the later one may be controlled in future within months or few years by vaccination and with specific drugs, but the former one provides base for many diseases including the current and any future pandemics. Although such predictions and the positive effects of SARS-CoV-2 on environment was already forecasted after the first wave of COVID-19, the learnt lesson as spotlight was not considered as one of the measures for which 2nd wave has quickly hit the world.

Optimal vaccine roll-out strategies including social distancing for pandemics

“…For example, delayed diagnosis of cancer and suboptimal care may have a strong impact on the population of patients with cancer (Patt et al, 2020). Additionally, in a long-term view, the air pollution especially in big cities enhances COVID mortality: A positive correlation between the pollution of nanoparticles and increased number of SARS-CoV-2 viral attachment in respiratory epithelial cells is reported (Paital and Agrawal, 2021;Paital and Das, 2021;Mousazadeh et al, 2021).…”

Human health care against COVID-19 via environmental management

“…In many parts of the world, especially in metro and nonmetro-cities India, China, Italy, Germany and even USA, the pollution level is found to be high. It is estimated that 9 out of 10 people usually are breathing polluted air that falls below the air quality standard set by the WHO Paital (2020); Paital and Das (2021) (Paital, 2020. About 91% people lives where the air quality is below standard set by WHO and it leads to 4.2 million deaths per year under exposure to outdoor air pollution.…”

The migration and accumulation of typical pollutants in the growing media layer of bioretention facilities

“…In recent years, many cities in China (such as Guangzhou, Beijing, Wuhan, and Zhengzhou) were unable to cope with the flood disasters brought by the heavy rainfall events, and about 60 − 80% of the water bodies in Shenzhen and many other towns in the Pearl River Delta were seriously polluted (Chan et al 2018 ). More importantly, the polluted wastewater discharge will be used as a transmission medium in COVID-19 to further pollute the water environment and soil environment (Paital and Das 2022 ). To address these problems, stormwater management measures are being studied all over the world.…”