Spatial sensitivity analysis of COVID-19 infections concerning the satellite-based four air pollutants levels

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19), first reported in late December 2019, has affected the lives of many people throughout the world. Significant studies have been conducted on this pandemic, some of which have addressed understanding the relationship between different air pollutants and confirmed cases. In this study, the effects of four air pollutants (carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and sulfur dioxide) were assessed from February 19 to March 22, 2020 to explore how they can affect COVID-19 contagion in Iran. The mean concentrations of air pollutants were extracted from Sentinel 5P data. The COVID-19 confirmed case densities of two provinces, Semnan and Qom, were more than all other provinces. The effect of pollutants on the confirmed case densities was analyzed using multiple linear regression in order to estimate the impact coefficients for individual provinces. The impact coefficients determine the level of each pollutant's contribution to the density of total confirmed cases. Carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and ozone had both considerable negative and positive correlations with the density of confirmed COVID-19 cases, although sulfur dioxide was correlated more negatively than positively. In Semnan, a high hot spot province, nitrogen dioxide had the most significant effect on the density of confirmed cases among all pollutants, while the effect of carbon monoxide was greater in Qom. The results indicated that even short-term exposure to higher concentrations of the pollutants could lead to an increased risk of COVID-19 outbreaks, which should be considered in adopting adequate and appropriate control policies to manage the disease.