Association between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and long-term exposure to air pollution: Evidence from the first epidemic wave in China

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Abstract

No abstract available

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.21.20073700: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.


    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Several important caveats are worth mentioning. First, the data included here were all from mainland China. It is therefore not clear whether the findings can be generalized to other countries without data on historic air pollution exposure. Second, there are currently no high-quality records at city level of severe COVID-19 infections and ICU admissions, although we have attempted to fill the gap by using province-level reports. Finally, we do not know the exact number of cases because of the number of asymptomatic and mild-symptomatic cases that may not be recorded. These data will not be available until there has been a systematic survey of infection (e.g. by serological testing) across China. However, we have reported a national-level disease pattern covering 324 cities and its potential association with long-term exposure to air pollutants. In conclusion, our results, combined with recent reports from elsewhere, suggest a potential association between air quality and population vulnerability to COVID-19. Interventions to contain the COVID-19 outbreak in China successfully reduced air pollution levels and potentially prevented acute respiratory disease. The findings of this paper (and other previous studies that have given ambiguous results) indicate that a more definitive analysis is needed of the link between COVID-19 and air pollution.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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