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. 2020 Aug 1:728:138820.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138820. Epub 2020 Apr 20.

COVID-19 pandemic and environmental pollution: A blessing in disguise?

Sulaman Muhammad  1 , Xingle Long  2 , Muhammad Salman  3
Affiliations

COVID-19 pandemic and environmental pollution: A blessing in disguise?

Sulaman Muhammad et al. Sci Total Environ. .

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 has 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.

Keywords: COVID-19; Environmental pollution; NO(2) emissions.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Unlabelled Image
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
NO2 emissions in Wuhan during 2019 and 2020. (NASA, 2020)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
NO2 emissions in China before and after lockdown. (ESA, 2020)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
NO2 emissions in Spain before and after lockdown. (ESA, 2020)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
NO2 emissions in France before and after lockdown. (ESA, 2020).
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
NO2 emissions in Italy before and after lockdown. (ESA, 2020)
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
NO2 emissions in northeastern USA before and after lockdown. (NASA, 2020).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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