Correlation between the environmental parameters with outbreak pattern of COVID-19: A district level investigation based on yearlong period in India

The present study has investigated the role of regional meteorology and air quality parameters in the outbreak pattern of COVID-19 pandemic in India. Using the remote sensing based dataset of 12 environmental variables we correlated infective case counts at a district level in India. Our investigation carried out on the circumstantial data from more than 300 major affected districts in India and found that air quality parameters are playing very crucial role in this outbreak. Among the air pollutants, O3 was better correlating with infection counts followed by AOD, CO, NO2, BC and SO2. We also observed that among the weather parameters air temperature, incoming shortwave radiation, wind speed are positively and significantly associate with outbreak pattern and precipitation and humidity are negatively correlated with confirmed cases; only cloud cover has no significant relation. We noted that coastal districts in the both coast of India and districts located in the plain and low-lying areas have experienced bitter situation during this pandemic. Our study suggests that improving air quality with proper strict regulations and complete lockdown during the peak of pandemic could reduce the misfortune in all over India.