Environmental factors during COVID – 19 pandemic in Campinas, Brazil

During COVID – 19 pandemic, the main strategy to prevent virus dissemination adopted worldwide was the social distancing, in different degrees (ranging from simple recommendations to the population, to complete lockdown). In this context, many studies were performed around the world to assess the impacts of such measures on the environment, specially on air quality. The reported results almost unanimously pointed to a reduction in air contaminants, mainly as a response to vehicular traffic depletion and, at some level, to reduced human and industrial activities.  On March 24^th, 2020, a partial lockdown was decreed in São Paulo state, Brazil, and since then it has undergone, back and forth, several stages of strictness according to contamination and hospitalization rates, being stricter whenever intensive care units (ICU) occupation increased. Our study aims to evaluate environmental aspects (air quality and meteorology) in Campinas city (São Paulo, Brazil), during the pandemic, from March 24^th to December 31^st, and compare it with the weeks prior to the social distancing and with the previous year. In addition to the environmental variables, the “social distancing index” (obtained by using mobile phone data to assess displacements) and medical data (hospital admissions and deaths) were employed to a preliminary analysis of  the influence of environmental factors on COVID – 19 evolution in the city.