The Influence of Atmospheric Particulate on the Second Wave of CoViD-19 Pandemic in Emilia-Romagna (Italy): Some Empirical Findings

Roccetti, M.; Velasco, K. A.; Casini, L.

While the role played by air pollution and meteorological conditions on SARS-Cov-2 transmission is still subject of a scientific controversy, we have extended our analysis on this association by studying the impact of particulate on the beginning of the second wave in Emilia-Romagna (Italy), in the period October-November 2020. Again, we found many clues in favour of this hypothesis, with new results that shed a particular light on the time varying effect of the particulate on the virus spread. Specifically, we found a strong magnitude of correlation between the PM10 particulate and CoViD-19 infections, peaking at 6–7th day lags for contagions, while this magnitude drops to a medium level value with 9–11th day lags. This is of special interest, if we consider that the specialized literature suggests a median CoViD-19 incubation period of almost 6 days before that infected people display symptoms. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.