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This paper employs systematic literature network analysis, including a literature review and bibliometric network analysis, to explore the COVID-19 and air pollution literature. A total of 1208 relevant documents from the Scopus database were analyzed using VOSviewer and SciMAT to examine author, keyword, and country interconnections. The paper addresses three research questions: (1) the latest studies on COVID-19 and air pollution, (2) influential authors, documents, and sources in the field, and (3) the study's findings as a roadmap for future research. Visual representations of author and country networks highlight influential entities based on citation rate. Keyword cluster analysis via VOSviewer summarizes connections based on link strength. The strategic diagram generated by SciMAT offers insights into future research directions in specific thematic keywords: (1) air pollution, (2) nitrogen dioxide, (3) epidemiology, and (4) atmospheric aerosol. This analysis enhances understanding of COVID-19 and air pollution and guides future research endeavors. • Conducts a systematic review of the literature on COVID-19 and air pollution. • Utilizes bibliometric network analysis on a selection of documents. • Collects 1208 Scopus database documents from 2020 to 2023. • Identifies themes or keywords for further study on COVID-19 and air pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the rise of the Covid-19 pandemic, several researchers stated the possibility of a positive relationship between Covid-19 spread and climatic parameters. An ecological study in 12 Iranian cities using the report of daily deaths from Covid-19 (March to August 2020) and validated data on air pollutants, considering average concentrations in each city in the last year used to analyze the association between chronic exposure to air pollutants and the death rate from Covid-19 in Iran. Poisson regression models were used, with generalized additive models and adjustment variables. A significant increase of 2.7% (IC(95%) 2.6–4.4) was found in the mortality rate due to Covid-19 due to an increase of 1 μg/m3 of NO 2. The results suggest an association between Covid-19 mortality and NO 2 exposure. As a risk approximation associated with air pollution, more precise analysis is done. The results also show a good consistency with studies from other regions; this paper's results can be useful for the public health policymakers and decision-making to control the Covid-19 spread. • A reliable Covid-19 data from Iran was used in this paper. • 12 cities were considered from all of the minor climate conditions of the country to minimize the climate bias. • Correlation of the air pollution and the other most effective diseases on the Covid-19 is also studied. • Nox was the most effective particle and had a significant impact on the Covid-19 mortality rate. • For a 1% increase in the NO 2 concentration, there will be a 2.7% increase in the Covid-19 mortality rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of the SARS-CoV pandemic has gone well beyond health concerns, reaching the maritime industry. The study on the environmental impact of shipping industry during COVID-19 pandemic can provide useful insights to propose new management policies regarding shipping operations, both in-port and on the route. We present a case study centred in the Port of Barcelona covering a 30 nautical miles range in the period March to July 2020, during which different levels of restrictions and stringent lockdown measures were enforced. In this paper, we assess the impact of COVID-19 on maritime traffic and its related emissions in port cities using real-time Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. Interestingly, results show that the decline in maritime traffic is not correlated with a decrease in maritime emissions due to changes in vessel operation. During lockdown (March to June 2020), we observed a 27.9% reduction in the number of port calls compared to the pre-lockdown scenario, whereas pollutant emissions show a moderate decrease (1.8% for CO 2), no significant reduction (SO 2 and PM) or a slight increase (1.3% for NO x). This can be directly assigned to changes in vessel operation mode, i.e. vessels switched from Underway to At Anchor or Moored status, during which auxiliary engines are used at higher loads. • The pollutant emissions evolution from maritime activity is computed from AIS data during COVID-19 restrictions in 2020. • A significant reduction in ship calls was observed, with a mild reduction in maritime traffic in the same area. • Passenger vessels were responsible for more than 40% of fuel consumption and emissions, but represented 17% of all vessels • Ships underway dominated the total emissions during lockdown, although theydecreased during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) not only affected health and economics, but also its effect extended to include other aspects, such as the environment. Using Egypt as a case study, this paper presents the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on air pollution levels by studying nitrogen dioxide (NO 2), ozone (O 3), particulate matter represented in absorbing aerosol index (AAI), carbon monoxide (CO), and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The paper also highlights the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on other environmental indicators including environmental noise, medical and municipal solid wastes. The paper presents the Egyptian COVID-19 story from its different angles including the development of confirmed COVID-19 cases, containment measures from the government, the impact on the country's economy and the national energy consumption so as to effectively evaluate the effect on both the air pollution levels and the other studied environmental indicators. For the other environmental indicators, a strong link was observed between COVID-19 lockdown and the reduction in environmental noise, beaches, surface and groundwater pollution. For environmental noise, this has been confirmed by officially governmental announcements which reported that the level of environmental noise in Egypt was reduced by about 75% during the lockdown period. On the other hand, there are some negative effects, including an increase in medical solid waste (from 70 to 300 ton/day), municipal solid waste, as well as a less efficient solid waste recycling process. For air pollution levels, the data were obtained from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency satellite data sets. The data for the lockdown period in 2020 have been extracted and compared to the corresponding months in the selected baseline period (2015–2019) to identify the effect that the lockdown period had on the air pollution levels in Egypt with focus on Cairo and Alexandria governorates. It was found that the AAI decreased by about 30%, the NO 2 decreased by 15 and 33% over Cairo and Alexandria governorates, respectively, and that the CO decreased by about 5% over both governorates. In addition, the GHG emissions in Egypt were reduced by at least 4% during the pandemic. In contrast, ozone levels increased by about 2% over Cairo and Alexandria governorates. It can be concluded that the implemented containment measures during COVID-19 pandemic had resulted in both positive and negative environmental impacts. The positive environmental impacts are not sustainable and deterioration on them is expected to occur after the lockdown as it was before the pandemic. Therefore, stricter laws must be enacted to protect the environment in Egypt. Image 1 • NO 2 decreased over Cairo (~ 15%) and Alexandria (~ 33%). • AAI and GHG emissions of Egypt decreased by about 30% and 4%, respectively. • An increase in ozone level (2%) and a reduction in CO (5%) over Cairo and Alexandria. • Reduction in environmental noise, beaches, surface and groundwater pollution. • Increase municipal and medical wastes and less efficient waste recycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 is a lung disease, and there is medical evidence that air pollution is one of the external causes of lung diseases. Fine particulate matter is one of the air pollutants that damages pulmonary tissue. The combination of the coronavirus and fine particulate matter air pollution may exacerbate the coronavirus' effect on human health. This paper considers whether the long-term concentration of fine particulate matter of different sizes changes the number of detected coronavirus infections and the number of COVID-19 fatalities in Germany. Data from 400 German counties for fine particulate air pollution from 2002 to 2020 are used to measure the long-term impact of air pollution. Kriging interpolation is applied to complement data gaps. With an ecological study, the correlation between average particulate matter air pollution and COVID-19 cases, as well as fatalities, are estimated with OLS regressions. Thereby, socioeconomic and demographic covariates are included. An increase in the average long-term air pollution of 1 μg/m3 particulate matter PM 2.5 is correlated with 199.46 (SD = 29.66) more COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Germany. For PM 10 the respective increase is 52.38 (SD = 12.99) more cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The number of COVID-19 deaths were also positively correlated with PM 2.5 and PM 10 (6.18, SD = 1.44, respectively 2.11, SD = 0.71, additional COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants). Long-term fine particulate air pollution is suspected as causing higher numbers of COVID-19 cases. Higher long-term air pollution may even increase COVID-19 death rates. We find that the results of the correlation analysis without controls are retained in a regression analysis with controls for relevant confounding factors. Nevertheless, additional epidemiological investigations are required to test the causality of particulate matter air pollution for COVID-19 cases and the severity. • COVID-19 infections are substantially positively correlated with long-term particulate matter concentration in German counties. • The correlation is robust to the inclusion of relevant control variables in multiple OLS regressions. • COVID-19 fatalities are also positively correlated with long-term particulate matter concentration. • The correlation between particulate matter concentration and COVID-19 fatalities was not robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the COVID-19 pandemic is still in progress, being under the fifth COVID-19 wave in Madrid, over more than one year, Spain experienced a four wave pattern. The transmission of SARS-CoV-2 pathogens in Madrid metropolitan region was investigated from an urban context associated with seasonal variability of climate and air pollution drivers. Based on descriptive statistics and regression methods of in-situ and geospatial daily time series data, this study provides a comparative analysis between COVID-19 waves incidence and mortality cases in Madrid under different air quality and climate conditions. During analyzed period 1 January 2020–1 July 2021, for each of the four COVID-19 waves in Madrid were recorded anomalous anticyclonic synoptic meteorological patterns in the mid-troposphere and favorable stability conditions for COVID-19 disease fast spreading. As airborne microbial temporal pattern is most affected by seasonal changes, this paper found: 1) a significant negative correlation of air temperature, Planetary Boundary Layer height, and surface solar irradiance with daily new COVID-19 incidence and deaths; 2) a similar mutual seasonality with climate variables of the first and the fourth COVID-waves from spring seasons of 2020 and 2021 years. Such information may help the health decision makers and public plan for the future. • Climate factors and air quality can trigger SARS-CoV-2 viral infection transmission. • Synoptic atmospheric circulation patterns are related to COVID-19 waves start-up. • 1st and 4th COVID-19 waves have similar correlations with environmental variables. • COVID-19 and climate driving factors have mutual seasonality patterns in Madrid. • Early health strategies are essential to control the COVID-19 pandemic in Madrid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the problems hardly clarified in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic crisis is to identify factors associated with a lower mortality of COVID-19 between countries to design strategies to cope with future pandemics in society. The study here confronts this problem by developing a global analysis based on more than 160 countries. This paper proposes that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, healthcare spending and air pollution of nations are critical factors associated with fatality rate of COVID-19. The statistical evidence seems in general to support that countries with a low average COVID-19 fatality rate have high expenditures in health sector >7.5% of GDP, high health expenditures per capita >$2,300 and a lower exposure of population to days exceeding safe levels of particulate matter (PM 2.5). Another relevant finding here is that these countries have lower case fatality rates (CFRs) of COVID-19, regardless a higher percentage of population aged more than 65 years. Overall, then, this study finds that an effective and proactive strategy to reduce the negative impact of future pandemics, driven by novel viral agents, has to be based on a planning of enhancement of healthcare sector and of environmental sustainability that can reduce fatality rate of infectious diseases in society. • Expenditures in health sector >7.5% of GDP can reduce COVID-19 mortality between countries. • Health expenditures >$2,300 per capita can lessen COVID-19 mortality between countries. • Lower exposure of population to days having high levels of air pollution reduces COVID-19 mortality. • High health expenditures reduce COVID-19 mortality, though a high share of older population. • Efficient healthcare sector and environmental sustainability minimize case fatality rates of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus has come to the world and spread with great wide among the countries of the world and has resulted in numerous infections that exceeded 167,181,023 million patients and are close to 3.5 deaths by September 2021. It also brought with it panic and fear, halted many activities, and led to the decline of the global economy. It changed human behavior and forced people to change their lifestyles to avoid infection. One of the most sectors that must be taken into consideration through pandemic coronavirus (COVID-19) around the globe is the air conditioning systems. The HVAC systems depend on the air as a heat transfer medium. The air contains a group of pollutants, viruses, and bacteria, and it affects and destroys human life. The air filter plays a major role as an important component in the air conditioning systems. Thus, it requires more effort by researchers to improve its design to prevent the ultra-size of particles loaded with coronavirus (COVID-19). This paper provides insight into the design of existing combined air-conditioners on their suitability and their impact on the spread of the hybrid coronavirus epidemic and review efforts to obtain a highly efficient air filter to get rid of super-sized particles for protection against epidemic infection. In addition, important guideline recommendations have been made to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus and to obtain indoor air quality in air-conditioned places. • Indoor air quality is important in our society and provides healthy human comfort. • Increasing the temperatures and humidity dampen the activity of the COVID-19. • The air carries suspended particles of the COVID-19, which leads to an increase in infected cases. • Improper use of filters leads to spread of the bacterial and viruses' indoor environment. • Mandatory recommendations are drawn to benefit the global community to limit the spread of the deadly COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between COVID-19-related deaths, economic growth, PM 10 , PM 2.5, and NO 2 concentrations in New York state using city-level daily data through two Machine Learning experiments. PM 2.5 and NO 2 are the most significant pollutant agents responsible for facilitating COVID-19 attributed death rates. Besides, we found only six out of many tested causal inferences to be significant and true within the AUPRC analysis. In line with the causal findings, a unidirectional causal effect is found from PM 2.5 to Deaths, NO 2 to Deaths, and economic growth to both PM 2.5 and NO 2. Corroborating the first experiment, the causal results confirmed the capability of polluting variables (PM 2.5 to Deaths, NO 2 to Deaths) to accelerate COVID-19 deaths. In contrast, we found evidence that unsustainable economic growth predicts the dynamics of air pollutants. This shows how unsustainable economic growth could increase environmental pollution by escalating emissions of pollutant agents (PM 2.5 and NO 2) in New York state. [Display omitted] • We assess the effect of economic growth, PM 2.5 and NO 2 variations on COVID-19 deaths. • We employ two experimental approaches based on Deep Machine Learning. • PM 2.5 and NO 2 are the most significant air pollutant responsible for COVID-19 deaths. • Increasing levels of economic growth spur air pollution in New York state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although lockdown of the industrial and transport sector and stay at home advisories to counter the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that the air quality has improved during this time, very little is known about the role of ambient air pollutants and meteorology in facilitating its transmission. This paper presents the findings from a study that was conducted to evaluate whether air quality index (AQI), three primary pollutants (PM 2.5 , PM 10 and CO), Ground level ozone (O 3) and three meteorological variables (temperature, relative humidity, wind speed) have promoted the COVID-19 transmission in five megacities of India. The results show significant correlation of PM 2.5 , PM 10 , CO, O 3 concentrations, AQI and meteorological parameters with the confirmed cases and deaths during the lockdown period. Among the meteorological variables considered, temperature strongly correlated with the COVID-19 cases and deaths during the lockdown (r = 0.54 ; 0.25) and unlock period (r = 0.66 ; 0.25). Among the pollutants, ozone, and among the meteorological variables, temperature, explained the highest variability, up to 34% and 30% respectively, for COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths. AQI was not a significant parameter for explaining the variations in confirmed and death cases. WS and RH could explain 10–11% and 4–6% variations of COVID-19 cases. A GLM model could explain 74% and 35% variability for confirmed cases and deaths during the lockdown and 66% and 19% variability during the unlock period. The results suggest that meteorological parameters may have promoted the COVID-19 incidences, especially the confirmed cases. Our findings may encourage future studies to explore more about the role of ambient air pollutants and meteorology on transmission of COVID-19 and similar infectious diseases. [Display omitted] • During lockdown for COVID-19, air quality improved in five megacities of India. • PM 2.5 , PM 10 , CO concentration across the megacities reduced during the lockdown. • Delhi and Kolkata experienced rise in O 3 concentration during lockdown. • PM 2.5 , PM 10 , CO, O 3 , AQI and T correlated with COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths. • Temperature explained up to 30% variability for COVID-19 cases during the lockdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impacts of COVID-19 safer-at-home polices on collisions and pollution. We find that statewide safer-at-home policies lead to a 20% reduction in vehicular collisions and that the effect is entirely driven by less severe collisions. For pollution, we find particulate matter concentration levels approximately 1.5 μ g/m3 lower during the period of a safer-at-home order, representing a 25% reduction. We document a similar reduction in air pollution following the implementation of similar policies in Europe. We calculate that as of the end of June 2020, the benefits from avoided car collisions in the U.S. were approximately $16 billion while the benefits from reduced air pollution could be as high as $13 billion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The questioned link between air pollution and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spreading or related mortality represents a hot topic that has immediately been regarded in the light of divergent views. A first "school of thought" advocates that what matters are only standard epidemiological variables (i.e. frequency of interactions in proportion of the viral charge). A second school of thought argues that co-factors such as quality of air play an important role too. We analyzed available literature concerning the link between air quality, as measured by different pollutants and a number of COVID-19 outcomes, such as number of positive cases, deaths, and excess mortality rates. We reviewed several studies conducted worldwide and discussing many different methodological approaches aimed at investigating causality associations. Our paper reviewed the most recent empirical researches documenting the existence of a huge evidence produced worldwide concerning the role played by air pollution on health in general and on COVID-19 outcomes in particular. These results support both research hypotheses, i.e. long-term exposure effects and short-term consequences (including the hypothesis of particulate matter acting as viral "carrier") according to the two schools of thought, respectively. The link between air pollution and COVID-19 outcomes is strong and robust as resulting from many different research methodologies. Policy implications should be drawn from a "rational" assessment of these findings as "not taking any action" represents an action itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The severe cases of COVID-19 infections in Italy, and notably in Lombardy (mainly in Brescia and Bergamo areas), registered at the beginning of March 2020, occurred after a period of PM 10 pollution, that exceeded the concentration of 50 μg/m3 (the attention limit) for several days. The two events were supposed to be correlated, also based on the limited information available about the new virus. Despite that clear indications about the role of particulate matter (PM) in the virus mechanism dispersion cannot be found in literature, some researchers supposed that PM can act as virus carrier, promoting its diffusion through the air. This paper, for the first time, analyses the PM 10 situation in Lombardy (from 10th February to March 27, 2020), several days before the sanitary emergency explosion. The data of the detected infection cases are reported and discussed parallelly. As a comparison, the situation of Piedmont, located near to the Lombardy is also presented. Data are reported for Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona, Lodi, Milano, Monza-Brianza, Pavia (Lombardy), Alessandria, Vercelli, Novara, Biella, Asti, and Torino (Piedmont). The results show that it is not possible to conclude that COVID-19 diffusion mechanism also occurs through the air, by using PM 10 as a carrier. In particular, it is shown that Piedmont cities, presenting lower detected infections cases in comparison to Brescia and Bergamo in the investigated period, had most sever PM 10 pollution events in comparison to Lombardy cities. This first study may serve as a reference to better understand and predict the factors affecting the COVID-19 diffusion and transmission routes, focusing on the role of air particulate matter in the atmosphere. • PM 10 situation during COVID-19 sanitary crisis is analysed in Lombardy (Italy). • The possible correlation with the reported infection cases is discussed. • The role of airborne PM for the virus diffusion is not evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]