Global effect of city-to-city air pollution, health conditions, climatic & socio-economic factors on COVID-19 pandemic

Highlights

• Air pollutant species like ambient PM_2.5, nitrogen dioxide and ozone spur COVID-19 cases.

• Underlying health conditions like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and smoking increase risk of COVID-19 outcomes.

• High ambient temperature and relative humidity have mitigation effect on COVID-19.

• Population size, aged population, extreme poverty and income level are confounding factors of COVID-19.

• Government stringency on COVID-19 containment and accessibility to hospital beds can reduce COVID-19 cases.

Abstract

The rate of spread of the global pandemic calls for much attention from the empirical literature. The limitation of extant literature in assessing a comprehensive COVID-19 portfolio that accounts for complexities in the spread and containment of the virus underscores this study. We investigate the effect of city-to-city air pollutant species, meteorological conditions, underlying health conditions, socio-economic and demographic factors on COVID-19 health outcomes. We utilize a panel estimation of 615 cities in 6 continents from January 1 to June 11, 2020. While social distancing measures, movement restrictions and lockdown are reported to have improved environmental quality, we show that ambient PM_2.5 remains unhealthy and above the acceptable threshold in several countries. Our empirical assessment shows that while ambient PM_2.5, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, pressure, dew, Windgust, and windspeed increase the spread of COVID-19, high relative humidity and ambient temperature have mitigation effect on COVID-19, hence, decreases the number of confirmed cases. We report 66.3% of countries projected to experience a second wave of COVID-19 if government stringency and safety protocols are not enhanced. By extension, our assessments demonstrate that several factors namely underlying health conditions, meteorological, air pollution, health system quality, socio-economic and demographics spur the reproduction effect of COVID-19 across countries. Our study highlights the importance of government stringency in containing the spread of COVID-19 and its impacts.