“…Lombardy and other northern Italian regions were severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and also ranks among the most air polluted areas of Europe, being located in the Po valley ( European Environment Agency, 2020 ). For these reasons, several recent studies were recently carried out to investigate the association between air pollution and COVID-19 outbreak spread and severity in Lombardy and other northern Italian regions (E. Bontempi, 2020 , 2020 ; Coker et al, 2020 ; Comunian et al, 2020 ; Conticini et al, 2020 ; Filippini et al, 2020 ; Zoran et al, 2020a , 2020b ).…”