COVID-19 and the Environment, Review and Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript analyzed the influential factors on the Covid mortality in relation to different air pollutants is very interesting. The authors' insights based on the fundamental knowledge and well-designed study will inspire the air pollution epidemiologists by answering really practical and important questions from the ultimate objectives of these research. I really enjoyed reading the manuscript and learned a lot. 

Few typos were found. 

Line 377: 'ad' must be 'and'.

In the table after line 67, 5th row, PM2.55 must be PM2.5.

Table 2, I recommend consistent use of capital letters. Either death or Death. 

Line 333: add space between characteristics and [5].

Author Response

We corrected the typographical errors and appreciate the reviewer’s diligence in pointing them out and also the kind words about the content of the paper.

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript is an interesting paper where some hypotheses are reported and well-shown. Maybe, the approach is based on few countries, Italy is not considered even if this country was an important cluster (i.e., Lombardy) and different papers were published reporting possible causes of so high number of deaths (e.g., Manigrasso et al., Atmosphere, 2020, 11(9), 995; I suggest to add this ref and comment it). The paper could be considered for publication. I suggest to revise the layout, expecially in the ref section, it is really difficult to follow the ref.

Author Response

We added a citation to Table 3 about the Lombardy region that we had overlooked and appreciate the suggestion. We find the paper by Manigrasso et al. to be too specialized for this more general review, but added it to the Bibliography. The references have been reorganized.