Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185, Rome, Italy.
Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), Via Vitaliano Brancati 48, 00144, Rome, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2021 Mar 18;11(1):6256. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-85751-z.
Evidences of an association between air pollution and Covid-19 infections are mixed and inconclusive. We conducted an ecological analysis at regional scale of long-term exposure to air-borne particle matter and spread of Covid-19 cases during the first wave of epidemics. Global air pollution and climate data were calculated from satellite earth observation data assimilated into numerical models at 10 km resolution. Main outcome was defined as the cumulative number of cases of Covid-19 in the 14 days following the date when > 10 cumulative cases were reported. Negative binomial mixed effect models were applied to estimate the associations between the outcome and long-term exposure to air pollution at the regional level (PM, PM), after adjusting for relevant regional and country level covariates and spatial correlation. In total we collected 237,749 Covid-19 cases from 730 regions, 63 countries and 5 continents at May 30, 2020. A 10 μg/m increase of pollution level was associated with 8.1% (95% CI 5.4%, 10.5%) and 11.5% (95% CI 7.8%, 14.9%) increases in the number of cases in a 14 days window, for PM and PM respectively. We found an association between Covid-19 cases and air pollution suggestive of a possible causal link among particulate matter levels and incidence of COVID-19.
空气污染与新冠病毒感染之间存在关联的证据尚存在争议，并不明确。我们在区域尺度上进行了一项关于长期暴露于空气传播的颗粒物与新冠病毒感染传播之间关系的生态学分析。通过卫星对地观测数据同化到数值模型中，我们计算了全球空气污染和气候数据，分辨率为 10 公里。主要结果定义为在报告累计超过 10 例病例后的 14 天内新冠病毒感染病例的累计数量。在调整了相关的区域和国家层面的协变量以及空间相关性后，我们应用负二项式混合效应模型来估计结果与区域水平的长期空气污染暴露（PM、PM）之间的关联。截至 2020 年 5 月 30 日，我们从 730 个地区、63 个国家和 5 大洲共收集了 237749 例新冠病毒感染病例。污染水平每增加 10μg/m，在 14 天的窗口期内，PM 和 PM 分别与病例数增加 8.1%（95%置信区间 5.4%，10.5%）和 11.5%（95%置信区间 7.8%，14.9%）相关。我们发现新冠病毒感染病例与空气污染之间存在关联，这表明颗粒物水平与 COVID-19 发病率之间可能存在因果关系。
