Since its discovery in December 2019, the novel SARS-CoV-2 and the related COVID-19 have rapidly spread worldwide. Closed management methods have been applied in order to avoid further spread of the virus and to reduce the infection rate. This lead to positive and negative impacts on both the environment and the human comfort. During the lockdown and curfew, transport related emissions  decreased significantly and the human activity pattern was highly altered,  the majority of people spending almost all their time at home. This resulted in a unique indoor air quality. Mechanisms of airborne transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 indoors are highly debated. In order to prevent the possible virus transport indoors, possibly aggravated through the outdoor air, into the closed indoor microenvironments, houses were tightly closed. In turn, this will elevate the exposure levels to the indoor air pollution, which are emitted during a vast range of inhabitants’ activities. Keeping in mind that health effects assessment studies are relayed on ambient air pollution exposure levels, this would lead to false assessment reports while people spend almost all their time at home with air pollution exposure levels that are multifold higher than those outdoors during the lockdown periods.

This research topic is very important. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to present their current insights in this special issue by submitting high quality letters, technical notes, short communications, and research papers relevant to this theme, which include but are not limited to: 

• COVID-19 impacts on indoor air quality, including human patterns and mitigation strategies
• Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 indoors, with focus on relevance, mechanisms, dynamics, and features of virus-laden aerosol particles
• Impact of COVID19 on outdoor-to-indoor air relations, including infiltration ratios and aerosol modeling
• Indoor aerosol exposure and escalated health effects during the COVID-19, with focus on toxicology, epidemiology and virology
• Data analysis, prediction, and mining,mathematical modelling, simulation, calculation, and forecasting relevant for COVID19 

Prof. Tareq Hussein
Dr. Francesca Costabile
Guest Editors

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