The effect of research on COVID-19 and PM(2.5) on the localization of humanitarian aid

The spatiotemporal variation of the death and tested positive cases is poorly understood during the respiratory coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. On the other hand, COVID-19’s spread was not significantly slowed by pandemic maps. The aim of this study is to investigate the connection between COVID-19 distribution and airborne PM(2.5) (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 μm). Long-term exposure to high levels of PM(2.5) is significantly connected to respiratory diseases in addition to being a potential carrier of viruses. Between April 2020 and March 2021, data on COVID-19-related cases were gathered for all prefectures in Japan. There were 9159, 109,078, and 451,913 cases of COVID-19 that resulted in death, severe illness, and positive tests, respectively. Additionally, we gathered information on PM(2.5) from 1119 air quality monitoring stations that were deployed across the 47 prefectures. By using the statistical analysis tools in the Geographical Information System (GIS) software, it was found that the residents of prefectures with high PM(2.5) concentrations were the most susceptible to COVID-19. Additionally, the World Health Organization-Air Quality Guidelines (WHO-AQG) relative risk (RR) of 1.04 (95% CI: 1.01–1.08), which was used to compute the PM(2.5)-caused deaths, was employed as well. Approximately 1716 (95% CI: 429–3,432) cases of PM(2.5)-related deaths were thought to have occurred throughout the study period. Despite the possibility that the actual numbers of both COVID19 and PM(2.5)-caused deaths are higher, humanitarian actors could use PM(2.5) data to localize the efforts to minimize the spread of COVID-19.