Land Cover Pattern and Case Fatality Rate of COVID-19

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) has already caused 1,405,029 deaths worldwide, as of November 25 th , 2020. Assessing whether land cover in people’s living environments affects COVID-19 health outcomes is an urgent and crucial public health problem. Here, we examine land cover data associated with the case fatality rate (CFR) of COVID-19 at the county-level, in the United States. A 1% increase in green space in the county is associated with a statistically significant 0.34% (95% confidence interval 0.13%-0.55%) decrease in the county’s COVID-19 CFR, and a 1% increase in emergent herbaceous wetlands are correlated with a 1.65% (0.19%-3.11%) decrease in the CFR. In addition, a 1% increase in high intensity developed area among the total developed area is related to a significant 3.63% (2.14%-5.12%) increase in the CFR, while a 1% increase in medium intensity developed area is associated with a 0.75% (-0.02%-1.51%) decrease. Our research highlights that governments could prevent similar pandemics in the future and even achieve some sustainable development goals by decreasing development intensity and increasing green space in living environments.