Climate and clean air responses to COVID-19: a comment
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Climate and clean air responses to COVID-19: a comment S. M. Yasir Arafat1
•
Sarvodaya Tripathy2 • Sujita Kumar Kar3 • Russell Kabir4
Received: 27 May 2020 / Revised: 12 June 2020 / Accepted: 16 June 2020 Ó Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+) 2020
To the Editor, More than 5 months passed since the COVID-19 started affecting the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) had declared it a pandemic in March 2020, and most countries of the world have implemented a state of lockdown thereafter (World Health Organization 2020). The lockdown resulted in changes in lifestyle, disruption of the economy, loss of jobs, academic disruption, and many more socio-political challenges. At the same time, many positive changes also became evident. The reduction in air pollution is one of them. South-East Asian countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are some of the world’s most polluted countries, in terms of air quality. China which was the origin of this COVID-19 pandemic is also a country with a high level of air pollution. Delhi and its surrounding cities, for example, are considered as the topmost polluted cities in the world (IQAir nd). After lockdown in this region, there was a 49% reduction in the air quality index (AQI) as observed in a study. AQI measures pollutants like particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, etc. (The New Indian Express 2020). Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is considered as a highly lethal pollutant that is emitted due to the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles. The National Aeronautics and Space This Letter was submitted to the IJPH Call for comments: ‘‘Climate and clean air responses to Covid-19’’, and reflects the author’s opinion on the topic. & S. M. Yasir Arafat [email protected] 1
Department of Psychiatry, Enam Medical College and Hospital, Dhaka 1340, Bangladesh
2
Department of Microbiology, M.K.C.G. Medical College, Brahmapur, Odisha, India
3
Department of Psychiatry, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh 226003, India
4
School of Allied Health, Faculty of Health, Education, Medicine, and Social Care, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, UK
Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) had released images suggesting an improvement of the environmental quality and reduction of the emission of NO2 up to 30% post-lockdown in China (Muhammad et al. 2020). Similar changes were also observed in other countries like France, Italy, Spain, and the USA. It was claimed on the basis of the satellite images of the countries before and after lockdown. Fresh images from NASA showed a rebound of NO2 level in China with the ending of lockdowns and resuming of the economic activities (NASA Earth Observatory 2020). Another study conducted in Sa˜o Paulo, Brazil showed a drastic reduction in Nitric oxide, NO2, and Carbon monoxide concentrations during the lockdown phase. In the same study, they also found about a 30% increase in ozone concentrations in the urban areas that wer
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