Assessment of the association between dust storms and COVID-19 infection rate in southwest Iran
Broomandi P. Crape B. Jahanbakhshi A. Janatian N. Nikfal A. Tamjidi M. Kim J.R. Middleton N. Karaca F.
May 2022Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Environmental Science and Pollution Research
2022#29Issue 2436392 - 36411 pp.
This study assesses a plausible correlation between a dust intrusion episode and a daily increase in COVID-19 cases. A surge in COVID-19 cases was observed a few days after a Middle East Dust (MED) event that peaked on 25th April 2020 in southwest Iran. To investigate potential causal factors for the spike in number of cases, cross-correlations between daily combined aerosol optical depths (AODs) and confirmed cases were computed for Khuzestan, Iran. Additionally, atmospheric stability data time series were assessed by covering before, during, and after dust intrusion, producing four statistically clustered distinct city groups. Groups 1 and 2 had different peak lag times of 10 and 4-5 days, respectively. Since there were statistically significant associations between AOD levels and confirmed cases in both groups, dust incursion may have increased population susceptibility to COVID-19 disease. Group 3 was utilized as a control group with neither a significant level of dust incursion during the episodic period nor any significant associations. Group 4 cities, which experienced high dust incursion levels, showed no significant correlation with confirmed case count increases. Random Forest Analysis assessed the influence of wind speed and AOD, showing relative importance of 0.31 and 0.23 on the daily increase percent of confirmed cases, respectively. This study may serve as a reference for better understanding and predicting factors affecting COVID-19 transmission and diffusion routes, focusing on the role of MED intrusions.
AOD , Atmospheric air pollution , Atmospheric stability class , Khuzestan , MED intrusion , SARS-CoV-2
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Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, 010000, Kazakhstan
Department of Chemical Engineering, Masjed-Soleiman Branch, Islamic Azad University, Masjed-Soleiman, Iran
Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, 010000, Kazakhstan
Environmental Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, United Kingdom
Chair of Hydrobiology and Fishery, Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia
Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Atmospheric Science and Meteorological Research Centre, Tehran, Iran
Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
St Anne’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX2 6HS, United Kingdom
The Environment and Resource Efficiency Cluster (EREC), Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, 010000, Kazakhstan
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Department of Chemical Engineering
Department of Medicine
Environmental Centre
Chair of Hydrobiology and Fishery
Department of Evolutionary Biology
Atmospheric Science and Meteorological Research Centre
Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment
St Anne’s College
The Environment and Resource Efficiency Cluster (EREC)
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