Comparisons of Combined Oxidant Capacity and Redox-Weighted Oxidant Capacity in Their Association with Increasing Levels of COVID-19 Infection.

Background: Ozone (O₃) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) are substances with oxidizing ability in the atmosphere. Only considering the impact of a single substance is not comprehensive. However, people's understanding of "total oxidation capacity" (O_x) and "weighted average oxidation" (O_x^wt) is limited. Objectives: This investigation aims to assess the impact of O_x and O_x^wt on the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). We also compared the relationship between the different calculation methods of O_x and O_x^wt and the COVID-19 infection rate. Method: We recorded confirmed COVID-19 cases and daily pollutant concentrations (O₃ and NO₂) in 34 provincial capital cities in China. The generalized additive model (GAM) was used to analyze the nonlinear relationship between confirmed COVID-19 cases and O_x and O_x^wt. Result: Our results indicated that the correlation between O_x and COVID-19 was more sensitive than O_x^wt. The hysteresis effect of O_x and O_x^wt decreased with time. The most obvious statistical data was observed in Central China and South China. A 10 µg m⁻³ increase in mean O_x concentrations were related to a 23.1% (95%CI: 11.4%, 36.2%) increase, and a 10 µg m⁻³ increase in average O_x^wt concentration was related to 10.7% (95%CI: 5.2%, 16.8%) increase in COVID-19. In conclusion, our research results show that O_x and O_x^wt can better replace the single pollutant research on O₃ and NO₂, which is used as a new idea for future epidemiological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]