Nexus between air pollution and NCOV-2019 in China : application of negative binomial regression analysis

Abstract

On a global scale, the epidemic of the novel coronavirus (NCOV-2019) has become a major issue that is seriously harming human health and impairing the environment's quality. The current study examines the association between air pollution and NCOV-2019 in China, where cases of NCOV-2019 are correlated with deaths in public databases with data on air pollution tracked at multiple locations in different provinces of China. A negative binomial regression (NBR) model was applied to examine the difference between the number of people infected with NCOV-2019 and the number of deaths in China. The findings show that, after population density regulation, there is a positive connection between air pollutants concentration (particularly nitrogen dioxide) and the number of NCOV-2019 cases and deaths. Furthermore, PM2.5 is the key cause of NCOV-2019 cases and deaths in China. The results indicate that a 1% increase in the average of PM2.5 was correlated with an increase of 11.67 % in NCOV-2019 cases and a rise of 18 % in NCOV-2019 deaths. We concluded that a slight rise in air pollution has caused the number of NCOV-2019 cases and deaths to increase dramatically. This research provides a basis for future policies affected by this pandemic in terms of health and pollution.