COVID-19 and environmental concerns: A rapid review.

COVID-19 has slowed global economic growth and consequently impacted the environment as well. Parallelly, the environment also influences the transmission of this novel coronavirus through various factors. Every nation deals with varied population density and size; air quality and pollutants; the nature of land and water, which significantly impact the transmission of coronavirus. The WHO (Ziaeepour et al., 2008) [1] has recommended rapid reviews to provide timely evidence to the policymakers to respond to the emergency. The present study follows a rapid review along with a brief bibliometric analysis of 328 research papers, which synthesizes the evidence regarding the environmental concerns of COVID-19. The novel contribution of this rapid review is threefold. One, we take stock of the diverse findings as regards the transmission of the novel coronavirus in different types of environments for providing conclusive directions to the ongoing debate regarding the transmission of the virus. Two, our findings provide topical insights as well as methodological guidance for future researchers in the field. Three, we inform the policymakers on the efficacy of environmental measures for controlling the spread of COVID-19. • The study conducts a rapid review of 117 papers synthesizing the evidence regarding the environmental concerns of Covid-19. • We explore themes of meteorological- and non-meteorological factors, air qualities, water-based, and land-related factors. • Our review calls for maintaining a cleaner environment to reduce the mortality and morbidity cases during future pandemics. • Our study informs the body of knowledge in the field of pandemics, environment, and general science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]