key: cord-0936407-inkm2q2w
authors: Muhammad, Sulaman; Long, Xingle; Salman, Muhammad
title: COVID-19 pandemic and environmental pollution: A blessing in disguise?
date: 2020-04-20
journal: Sci Total Environ
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138820
sha: 4fb4ebe703a029cdc6f574d4d4498483e96059eb
doc_id: 936407
cord_uid: inkm2q2w

Abstract In late 2019, a novel infectious disease with human to human transmission (COVID-19) was identified in Wuhan China, which now has turned into a global pandemic. Countries all over the world have implemented some sort of lockdown to slow down its infection and mitigate it. Lockdown due to COVID-19 has drastic effects on social and economic fronts. However, this lockdown also have some positive effect on natural environment. Recent data released by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and ESA (European Space Agency) indicates that pollution in some of the epicenters of COVID-19 such as Wuhan, Italy, Spain and USA etc. has reduced up to 30%. This study compiled the environmental data released by NASA and ESA before and after the coronavirus pandemic and discusses its impact on environmental quality.

A novel infectious disease of coronavirus family was identified in Wuhan, China in late December 2019, which was later named as COVID-19 . In January 2020, WHO (world health organization) confirmed human to human transmission of COVID-19 through respiratory droplets (WHO, 2020) . Later on the same month, authorities confirmed a cluster of COVID-19 cases in Wuhan, which increased rapidly not only in surrounding areas but also spread in the whole country and the outbreak turned into epidemic (Dutheil et al., 2020) . On January 23 rd , Wuhan was placed under quarantine, while Hubei province follows within few days. Subsequently, Chinese government placed the whole country on lockdown to slow down the spread of infection and ease burden on health facilities (Wilder-Smith and Freedman, 2020).

Chinese authorities shutdown public transport, educational institutes, businesses centers, parks and other social interaction points to curtail the transmission of COVID-19. On January 30 th , WHO declared worldwide public health emergency. In February, outbreak begin in Iran, Italy and other countries around the globe. Subsequently, the epidemic turns into pandemic and by end of March half of the world population was under some form of lockdown (Tosepu et al., 2020) .

As of April 16, 2020, the total no of COVID-19 cases surpassed 2.1 million worldwide, with no of total deaths more than 135,000 (WHO, 2020).

As countries went into lockdown the industrial activities shutdown globally. Among many other sectors, transport is the most hard hit sector due to lockdown. Road and air transport came to halt as people are not allowed or hesitate to travel. According to report, air travel dropped by 96% due to COVID-19, lowest in 75 years (CNN, 2020). Furthermore, not only transport sector but also industrial and manufacturing sector is heavily effected by pandemic. Global oil demand declined drastically and prices cut down sharply, as industrial and transport sectors came to halt J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f 3 worldwide. COVID-19 has severe negative impact on human health and world economy, however it also results in pollution reduction due to limited social and economic activities (Dutheil et al., 2020) .

NO 2 (nitrogen dioxide) is highly reactive pollutant and emitted especially from the combustion of fossil fuels. Traffic pollution is considered as the major source of NO 2 emissions . NO 2 is considered highly lethal to human health as studies shows that both short term and long term exposure to NO 2 can increase mortality rate (Faustini et al., 2014) . NO 2 may cause bronchial hyper responsiveness, cellular inflammation and respiratory problems . Annually 4.6 million people die worldwide due to poor air quality. Air pollution is a global problem and its effects can be seen even across developed nations such as Europe where 193,000 people died due to air pollution in 2012 (Cohen et al., 2017) .

Lockdown due to COVID-19 reduced transport activities which results in less energy consumption and lower oil demand. These changes in transport activities and oil demand exerts a significant impact on the environmental quality. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and ESA (European Space Agency) released fresh evidence which suggests that environmental quality improved and the emission of NO 2 reduced up to 30%. NASA collect the data using OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instruments) on its AURA satellite. While, ESA collect the data through Sentinel-5P satellite using TROPOMI (TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument). In addition, google release data of mobility index report from February 23 to April 05 (See Table 2 ). The data shows that mobility has reduced up to 90%. Particularly across Spain, Italy and France. While, mobility has reduced the least across USA.

J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f 5 Table 2 Mobility index report based on google tracking. According to (ESA, 2020), the NO 2 emissions reduced up to 20 to 30% in Spain due to lockdown, especially across the major cities such as Madrid, Barcelona and Seville. The satellite image was captured by ESA satellite Sentinel-5P using TROPOMI Instrument. 

COVID-19 is a global pandemic and serious threat to human health which halt the economic activities, however it is also considered as a "Blessing in Disguise", where pollution is reducing and nature is reclaiming itself. This positive impact on environment maybe temporary but governments and individuals should learn from this lockdown on how to reduce pollution on long term basis.

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