ABSTRACT
The exploratory study aimed to investigate whether novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) fatality is correlated with environmental factors (air quality, humidity, temperature). The major COVID-19 affected cities in South Asian countries have been considered in this study. Atmospheric pollution always leads to chronic inflammatory responses, but do they affect COVID-19 fatality? By observing the most affected cities and their fatality rates, the assumption about the correlation of air pollution with COVID-19 fatality does not hold for the most affected areas. By contrast, lockdown due to COVID-19 has a strong effect on air pollution. The air pollution level (average NO2) over the South Asian countries observed (by using data from Sentinel 5-P satellite) significantly reduced. This phenomenon might be beneficial to the respective countries in the time of the lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. Other influences such as temperature were significantly correlated with the spread of the deadly virus, but the fatality rate still did not correlate with temperature. Additionally, higher fatality rate was observed in some of the cities in South Asian countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, though the temperature was high (˜38°C). The unfold cause might be the unhealthy lifestyle, malnutrition, and insufficient health facilities (ventilator) due to their poor economic conditions, as well as other unknown factors.
