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

An indirect effect of quarantine and lockdown in Italy is the strong reduction of airborne Nitrogen Dioxide Plummets and PM10 over Norther of Italy. The maps in figure 4 by ESA (2020) Overall, then, the indirect effect of quarantine and lockdown of Italy and other European countries has reduced in a short time NO2 and air pollution, improving the quality of environment that may reduce, associated with quarantine, physical distancing and other inter-related factors, the transmission dynamics of COVID-19. A study by Zhang et al. (2019a) shows that with the implementation of air policy in China, from 2013 to 2017, fine particle (PM2.5) concentrations have significant declined nationwide with health benefits. Now, the danger is that after the quarantine and lockdown, the industrial activity of industrialized regions in Italy has to resume at an intense pace of production and in next winter-fall season 2020-2021 there may be again the environmental and meteorological conditions that can lead to diffusion of viral infectivity of COVID-19 and/or other dangerous viruses. Of course, non-physical distancing and other long-run factors play a critical part in mitigating transmission dynamics of future epidemic similar to COVID-19, in particular when measures of physical distancing, school and store closures, workplace distancing, prohibition for crowded places are relaxed. The suggested strategy that regions of North Italy has to . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.