176
A. Chauhan
in many cities. The air quality improved after lockdown in Delhi, Bangalore, Beijing
including major trade centres of the world at Paris, Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul, London and
New York but once the situation is back to normal the level is likely to rise again [63].
Shakil et al. (2020) in their critically analysed 57 studies published in nine journals
for the month of May 2020 concluded air pollution reduced significantly because
of lockdown [61]. Sarfraz, Shehzad and Shah (2020) in their study from January
2020 to April 2020 in India studied the usefulness of COVID-19 on air pollution
by the execution of data from CPCB online portal and European Space Agency
(ESA) and found improvement in air quality in India with a substantial decrease in
Nitrogen Dioxide (40–50%) in Mumbai and Delhi as compared to last year [58].
Masum and Pal (2020) in their study on Chittagong city in Bangladesh found that
except NO 2 , all other pollutants PM 10 , PM 2.5 , NO 2 , SO 2 and CO showed statistically
significant decreasing trend due to lockdown [43]. Kanniah et al. (2020) illustrated
in their study that due to shut down of industrial and anthropogenic activities, aerosol
optical depth (AOD) over sea decreased notably by 27–30% in the troposphere along
with reductions in other air pollutants in Malaysia [33].
Review of Studies linked with Air Pollution and Morality during COVID-19
Wu et al. (2020) studied the increasing danger of COVID-19 deaths in United States
by studying factors such as population density and size, age distribution, behavioural
and socio-economic variables of smoking and obesity and concluded that during
coronavirus increase of only 1 µg/m
3 in PM 2.5 leads to 8% rise in the death rate [75].
Conticini et al. (2020) stated that the high level of pollution is an important co-factor
for the high level of deaths in Northern Italy due to COVID-19 [13]. Frontera, et al.
(2020) analysed the association between COVID-19 outbreak and air pollutants with
the number of patients, rate of transmission and death number in Italian regions. The
most polluted regions required ICU admission due to more severe form of COVID-19
along with the highest number of people showing morality in comparison to other
regions as the virus can remain viable for some hours in aerosol [23]. Isphording and
Pestel (2020) studied the severity of spreading of COVID-19 in Germany with air
pollution and found positive effects of PM 10 concentration and air pollution on the
death in elderly patients due to COVID-19 [32]. Tian et al. (2020) stated that longterm exposure to PM 2.5 is directly linked with COVID-19 mortality [69]. Najmi et al.
(2020) in their study compared the air quality status in Marrakech and Casablanca,
two large cities from Morocco during the lockdown and before the pandemic and
found drop in air pollutants benefitting the health of the humans and reducing the
rate of morality [48].
Thus, COVID-19 pandemic has proved to be a ‘blessing in disguise’ which can
help earth to revive and improve air quality [35] which has been supported by many
research studies conducted in different parts of the world [1, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 23, 28,
32, 33, 35, 36, 42, 43, 48, 55, 57, 58, 61, 63, 69, 75]. Further it has been found that
places where the air pollution was high, deaths rate due to COVID-19 also enhanced
[13, 23, 32, 48, 69, 75]. In India, the concentration of sulphur dioxide between April
2019 and April 2020 decreased by around 40% [19] as shown in Fig. 7.3, the data
obtained from ESA, Copernicus Sentinel 5-P Satellite.
A. Chauhan
in many cities. The air quality improved after lockdown in Delhi, Bangalore, Beijing
including major trade centres of the world at Paris, Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul, London and
New York but once the situation is back to normal the level is likely to rise again [63].
Shakil et al. (2020) in their critically analysed 57 studies published in nine journals
for the month of May 2020 concluded air pollution reduced significantly because
of lockdown [61]. Sarfraz, Shehzad and Shah (2020) in their study from January
2020 to April 2020 in India studied the usefulness of COVID-19 on air pollution
by the execution of data from CPCB online portal and European Space Agency
(ESA) and found improvement in air quality in India with a substantial decrease in
Nitrogen Dioxide (40–50%) in Mumbai and Delhi as compared to last year [58].
Masum and Pal (2020) in their study on Chittagong city in Bangladesh found that
except NO 2 , all other pollutants PM 10 , PM 2.5 , NO 2 , SO 2 and CO showed statistically
significant decreasing trend due to lockdown [43]. Kanniah et al. (2020) illustrated
in their study that due to shut down of industrial and anthropogenic activities, aerosol
optical depth (AOD) over sea decreased notably by 27–30% in the troposphere along
with reductions in other air pollutants in Malaysia [33].
Review of Studies linked with Air Pollution and Morality during COVID-19
Wu et al. (2020) studied the increasing danger of COVID-19 deaths in United States
by studying factors such as population density and size, age distribution, behavioural
and socio-economic variables of smoking and obesity and concluded that during
coronavirus increase of only 1 µg/m
3 in PM 2.5 leads to 8% rise in the death rate [75].
Conticini et al. (2020) stated that the high level of pollution is an important co-factor
for the high level of deaths in Northern Italy due to COVID-19 [13]. Frontera, et al.
(2020) analysed the association between COVID-19 outbreak and air pollutants with
the number of patients, rate of transmission and death number in Italian regions. The
most polluted regions required ICU admission due to more severe form of COVID-19
along with the highest number of people showing morality in comparison to other
regions as the virus can remain viable for some hours in aerosol [23]. Isphording and
Pestel (2020) studied the severity of spreading of COVID-19 in Germany with air
pollution and found positive effects of PM 10 concentration and air pollution on the
death in elderly patients due to COVID-19 [32]. Tian et al. (2020) stated that longterm exposure to PM 2.5 is directly linked with COVID-19 mortality [69]. Najmi et al.
(2020) in their study compared the air quality status in Marrakech and Casablanca,
two large cities from Morocco during the lockdown and before the pandemic and
found drop in air pollutants benefitting the health of the humans and reducing the
rate of morality [48].
Thus, COVID-19 pandemic has proved to be a ‘blessing in disguise’ which can
help earth to revive and improve air quality [35] which has been supported by many
research studies conducted in different parts of the world [1, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 23, 28,
32, 33, 35, 36, 42, 43, 48, 55, 57, 58, 61, 63, 69, 75]. Further it has been found that
places where the air pollution was high, deaths rate due to COVID-19 also enhanced
[13, 23, 32, 48, 69, 75]. In India, the concentration of sulphur dioxide between April
2019 and April 2020 decreased by around 40% [19] as shown in Fig. 7.3, the data
obtained from ESA, Copernicus Sentinel 5-P Satellite.