Does air pollution explain COVID-19 fatality and mortality rates? A multi-city study in São Paulo state, Brazil

Since air pollution compromise the respiratory system and COVID-19 disease is caused by a respiratory virus, it is expected that air pollution plays an important role in the current COVID-19 pandemic. Exploratory studies have observed positive associations between air pollution and COVID-19 cases, deaths, fatality, and mortality rate. However, no study focused on Brazil, one of the most affected countries by the pandemic. Thus, this study aimed to understand how long-term exposure to PM(10), PM(2.5), and NO(2) contributed to COVID-19 fatality and mortality rates in São Paulo state in 2020. Air quality data between 2015 and 2019 in 64 monitoring stations within 36 municipalities were considered. The COVID-19 fatality was calculated considering cases and deaths from the government’s official data and the mortality rate was calculated considering the 2020 population. Linear regression models were well-fitted for PM(2.5) concentration and fatality (R(2) = 0.416; p = 0.003), NO(2) concentration and fatality (R(2) = 0.232; p = 0.005), and NO(2) concentration and mortality (R(2) = 0.273; p = 0.002). This study corroborates other authors’ findings and enriches the discussion for having considered a longer time series to represent long-term exposure to the pollutants and for having considered one of the regions with the highest incidence of COVID-19 in the world. Thus, it reinforces measures to reduce the concentration of air pollutants which are essential for public health and will increase the chance to survive in future respiratory disease epidemics.