Two mechanisms for accelerated diffusion of COVID-19 outbreaks in regions with high intensity of population and polluting industrialization: the air pollution-to-human and human-to-human transmission dynamics

Mario Coccia

Currently, as people with the COVID-19 infection arrive in countries or regions with low ongoing transmission, efforts should be done to stop transmission, prevent potential outbreaks and to avoid second and subsequent waves of a COVID-19 epidemic (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 2020; Quilty and Clifford, 2020; Wells et al., 2020) . Wells et al. (2020) argue that at the very early stage of the epidemic, reduction in the rate of exportation could delay the importation of cases into cities or nations unaffected by the COVID-19, to gain time to coordinate an appropriate public health response. After that, rapid contact tracing is basic within the epicenter and within and between importation cities to limit human-to-human transmission outside of outbreak countries, also 6 | P a g e Coccia M. (2020) Two mechanisms for accelerated diffusion of COVID-19 outbreaks in regions with high intensity of population and polluting industrialization: the air pollution-to-human and human-to-human transmission dynamics for ozone in the 55 Italian provincial capitals over 2018. This measure is stable over time and the strategy of using the year 2018, before the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy, is to include the health effects of exposures to pollutants, such as airborne particulate matter and ozone . In fact, days of air pollution within Italian cities are a main factor that has affected health of population and environment (Legambiente, 2019) .