THE LINK BETWEEN AIR POLLUTANTS AND COVID-19: A SUBJECT FIELD REVIEW

Since the COVID-19 outbreak appeared in China, the virus has been spreading rapidly around the world. This has affected people's lives and activities throughout the pandemic as many governments have declared total isolation in an attempt to stop the transmission of this virus. This blockage has led to the environmental improvement, especially in the air, where the amount of pollutants has sharply decreased. There are two links between the COVID-19 virus and air pollution, namely: one link before the spread of the virus, the second - after the spread. This research work studies the difference between this “before” and “after” as the figures in fact influence the quality of people's lives together with the COVID-19 direct impacts. The searches were conducted in the Scopus electronic database from January 2020 to January 2022. A total number of 528 articles were looked through, 32 articles were selected based on predefined selection criteria and included in this review. This article examines studies linking cases of diseases and deaths from COVID- 19 to the environment, paying particular attention to the relationship with air pollution. These studies have repeatedly reported that people living in poor countries where medical sphere is not developed at all, or huge megacities with a large number of transport and industrial enterprises, are more vulnerable to the virus due to the large amount of air pollutants. Mortality rates due to these factors increased significantly during the onset of the coronavirus. But factors related specifically to air pollutants already during a severe pandemic have both positive and negative sides. The research results can be used by the specialists studying the knock-on effects of COVID-19 as well as environmental problems.