Indoor air pollution affects the early COVID-19 fatality: A multiple linear regression analysis

In this study, early COVID-19 mortality and reproduction rates were settled as dependent variables and they were investigated to understand the most effective factors on these parameters. For this, various urban-related and host factor-related variables such as household type, GDP rates, etc., were collected for 56 countries from different sources, and stepwise multi-linear regression analyses were conducted to get regression equations to explain these dependent variables. Based on the results, indoor air pollution death rates were the most effective independent variable with the biggest partial contribution to the fatality of the COVID-19 regression equation. Moreover, due to the clusters of countries that show the highest and lowest indoor air pollution death rates, which may represent a global organization of the human population, it may be concluded that microbial circulations of the biologically evolving ecosystem also may be connected to the human factors, especially based on supply chains of these countries among agriculture, energy, and technology. The results suggest that the air quality within buildings, which are crucial elements of urban systems, could be the primary global factor influencing both the fatality and spread of COVID-19. This implies that both the building structures and the population compositions of cities may have a more significant impact on the trajectory of microbial diseases than previously acknowledged.