Skip to main content
PMC home page
Elsevier - PMC COVID-19 Collection logoLink to Elsevier - PMC COVID-19 Collection
. 2020 Apr 9;263:114466. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2020.114466

COVID-19 as a factor influencing air pollution?

Frédéric Dutheil 1,∗, Julien S Baker 2, Valentin Navel 3
PMCID: PMC7144597  PMID: 32283458

To the Editor: At the end of 2019, the first cases of pneumonia associated with coronavirus (COVID-19) were reported in Wuhan, China (Huang et al., 2020). Thereafter, the number of infected people increased rapidly and, a month later, the outbreak turned into a national crisis, with infected individuals diagnosed all over the country (CDC, 2020; Chan et al., 2020; World Health Organization, 2020a; 2020b). Chinese authorities shut down transportation and travel in and out of Wuhan. They also curtailed and reduced local business travel, closed down schools, colleges and universities in order to reduce the spread of the disease and established numerous quarantines (Wilder-Smith and Freedman, 2020). The maps in Fig. 1 show the nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations, resulting primarily from the burning of fossil fuels (He et al., 2020a,b), prior to and following the quarantine, with a massive reduction observed in concentrations after the corona virus outbreak (NASA, 2020). The data were collected by the Tropospheric Monitoring Instruments (TROPOMI) on-board ESA’s Sentinel-5 satellite. A related sensor, the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on-board NASA’s Aura satellite, recorded similar atmospheric changes. NO2 is a common tracer of air pollution/industrial activity, associated with morbidity and mortality (He et al., 2020a,b). NASA scientists have commented that the reduction in NO2 pollution was first apparent near Wuhan, but spread across the rest of the country, and eventually worldwide (NASA, 2020). In Central China, NO2 emissions were reduced by as much as 30% (NASA, 2020). CO2 emissions, another common tracer of air pollution (Hanaoka and Masui, 2019), decreased by 25% in China and by 6% worldwide (CarbonBrief, 2020). Air pollution is responsible for many deaths and increased incidences of respiratory disease (Brauer, 2010). According to the World Health Organization, 4.6 million individuals die annually from diseases and illnesses directly related to poor air quality (Cohen et al., 2017). Poor air quality is responsible for more deaths each year than motor vehicle accidents (European Environment Agency, 2005). The impact of air pollution is a global problem and includes developed countries, such as the European nations where 193,000 people died in 2012 from airborne particulate matter (Ortiz et al., 2017). Air pollution associated deaths include but are not limited to aggravated asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, lung and heart diseases, and respiratory allergies (Brauer, 2010). China, where the COVID-19 epidemic started, is also a country severely affected by air pollution (He et al., 2020a,b) Air pollution in China was responsible for 4000 preventable deaths each day i.e. 1.6 million fatalities in 2016 (Rohde and Muller, 2015; Wang et al., 2012). Several models predict mortality due to air pollution (Hoek et al., 2013), with an increase of all-cause mortality ranging from 0.13% per 10μg/m3 of NO2 per day (He et al., 2020a,b) to 2% per 10μg/m3 of NO2 on a 5 day period (Chiusolo et al., 2011), or a global hazard ratio of 1.052 (95 confidence intervals 1.045 to 1.059) per increase of 8.1 ppb in NO2 (Crouse et al., 2015). In a hypothetical scenario in which the impact of air pollution on mortality was underestimated using the aforementioned models, and in which we considered a time period of two months with a decrease in NO2 air pollution in China, macabre predictions could postulate a 6% reduction in mortality due to air pollution (i.e. around 100 000 life’s saved, just in China). Similar calculations could be applied to other countries. At the time of writing this, there are 3,158 reported deaths from COVID-19 in China and 4,607 worldwide. Considering the huge decrease in air pollution following the quarantine (China’s CO2 emissions decreased by a quarter), the COVID-19 pandemic might paradoxically have decreased the total number of deaths during this period, by drastically decreasing the number of fatalities due to air pollution. Moreover, in addition to the reduced number of deaths due to air pollution, the reduction in air pollution itself could also have positive benefits in reducing preventable non communicable diseases (Chen and Bloom, 2019; Neira et al., 2018).

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

Open in a new tab

Sequence of airborne NO2 concentrations measured with the TROPOMI sensor on-board ESA’s Sentinel-5 satellite before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. (Satellite images from (NASA, 2020)).

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Frédéric Dutheil: Conceptualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Julien S. Baker: Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Valentin Navel: Conceptualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors of this work declare no conflict of interest.

This paper has been recommended for acceptance by Admir Créso

Footnotes

Appendix A

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2020.114466.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

The following is the Supplementary data to this article:

Multimedia component 1
mmc1.xml (221B, xml)

References

  1. Brauer M. How much, how long, what, and where: air pollution exposure assessment for epidemiologic studies of respiratory disease. Proc. Am. Thorac. Soc. 2010;7:111–115. doi: 10.1513/pats.200908-093RM. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. CarbonBrief . 2020. As China Battles One of the Most Serious Virus Epidemics of the Century, the Impacts on the Country’s Energy Demand and Emissions Are Only Beginning to Be Felt. [Google Scholar]
  3. CDC . 2020. First Travel-Related Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Detected in United States. [Google Scholar]
  4. Chan J.F.-W., Yuan S., Kok K.-H., To K.K.-W., Chu H., Yang J., Xing F., Liu J., Yip C.C.-Y., Poon R.W.-S., Tsoi H.-W., Lo S.K.-F., Chan K.-H., Poon V.K.-M., Chan W.-M., Ip J.D., Cai J.-P., Cheng V.C.-C., Chen H., Hui C.K.-M., Yuen K.-Y. A familial cluster of pneumonia associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus indicating person-to-person transmission: a study of a family cluster. Lancet. 2020;395:514–523. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30154-9. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Chen S., Bloom D.E. The macroeconomic burden of noncommunicable diseases associated with air pollution in China. PloS One. 2019;14 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0215663. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Chiusolo M., Cadum E., Stafoggia M., Galassi C., Berti G., Faustini A., Bisanti L., Vigotti M.A., Dessì M.P., Cernigliaro A., Mallone S., Pacelli B., Minerba S., Simonato L., Forastiere F., EpiAir Collaborative Group Short-Term effects of nitrogen dioxide on mortality and susceptibility factors in 10 Italian cities: the EpiAir study. Environ. Health Perspect. 2011;119:1233–1238. doi: 10.1289/ehp.1002904. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Cohen A.J., Brauer M., Burnett R., Anderson H.R., Frostad J., Estep K., Balakrishnan K., Brunekreef B., Dandona L., Dandona R., Feigin V., Freedman G., Hubbell B., Jobling A., Kan H., Knibbs L., Liu Y., Martin R., Morawska L., Pope C.A., Shin H., Straif K., Shaddick G., Thomas M., van Dingenen R., van Donkelaar A., Vos T., Murray C.J.L., Forouzanfar M.H. Estimates and 25-year trends of the global burden of disease attributable to ambient air pollution: an analysis of data from the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2015. Lancet. 2017;389:1907–1918. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30505-6. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Crouse D.L., Peters P.A., Hystad P., Brook J.R., van Donkelaar A., Martin R.V., Villeneuve P.J., Jerrett M., Goldberg M.S., Pope C.A., Brauer M., Brook R.D., Robichaud A., Menard R., Burnett R.T. Ambient PM2.5, O₃, and NO₂ exposures and associations with mortality over 16 Years of follow-up in the Canadian census health and environment cohort (CanCHEC) Environ. Health Perspect. 2015;123:1180–1186. doi: 10.1289/ehp.1409276. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. European Environment Agency . 2005. Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament - Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution. (COM(2005) 0446 final) [Google Scholar]
  10. Hanaoka T., Masui T. Exploring effective short-lived climate pollutant mitigation scenarios by considering synergies and trade-offs of combinations of air pollutant measures and low carbon measures towards the level of the 2 °C target in Asia. Environ. Pollut. 2019;261:113650. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2019.113650. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. He L., Zhang S., Hu J., Li Z., Zheng X., Cao Y., Xu G., Yan M., Wu Y. On-road emission measurements of reactive nitrogen compounds from heavy-duty diesel trucks in China. Environ. Pollut. 2020;262:114280. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2020.114280. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. He M.Z., Kinney P.L., Li T., Chen C., Sun Q., Ban J., Wang J., Liu S., Goldsmith J., Kioumourtzoglou M.-A. Short- and intermediate-term exposure to NO2 and mortality: a multi-county analysis in China. Environ. Pollut. 2020;261:114165. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2020.114165. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Hoek G., Krishnan R.M., Beelen R., Peters A., Ostro B., Brunekreef B., Kaufman J.D. Long-term air pollution exposure and cardio- respiratory mortality: a review. Environ. Health. 2013;12:43. doi: 10.1186/1476-069X-12-43. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Huang C., Wang Y., Li X., Ren L., Zhao J., Hu Y., Zhang L., Fan G., Xu J., Gu X., Cheng Z., Yu T., Xia J., Wei Y., Wu W., Xie X., Yin W., Li H., Liu M., Xiao Y., Gao H., Guo L., Xie J., Wang G., Jiang R., Gao Z., Jin Q., Wang J., Cao B. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Lancet. 2020;395:497–506. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30183-5. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. NASA . 2020. Airborne Nitrogen Dioxide Plummets over China. [Google Scholar]
  16. Neira M., Prüss-Ustün A., Mudu P. Reduce air pollution to beat NCDs: from recognition to action. Lancet. 2018;392:1178–1179. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32391-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Ortiz C., Linares C., Carmona R., Díaz J. Evaluation of short-term mortality attributable to particulate matter pollution in Spain. Environ. Pollut. 2017;224:541–551. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2017.02.037. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Rohde R.A., Muller R.A. 2015. Air Pollution in China: Mapping of Concentrations and Sources. Berkeley Earth. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Wang H., Dwyer-Lindgren L., Lofgren K.T., Rajaratnam J.K., Marcus J.R., Levin-Rector A., Levitz C.E., Lopez A.D., Murray C.J.L. Age-specific and sex-specific mortality in 187 countries, 1970-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet. 2012;380:2071–2094. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61719-X. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Wilder-Smith A., Freedman D.O. Isolation, quarantine, social distancing and community containment: pivotal role for old-style public health measures in the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak. J. Trav. Med. taaa020. 2020 doi: 10.1093/jtm/taaa020. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. World Health Organization . 2020. Novel Coronavirus – Thailand (ex-China) [Google Scholar]
  22. World Health Organization . 2020. Novel Coronavirus – Japan (ex-China) [Google Scholar]

Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Supplementary Materials

Multimedia component 1
mmc1.xml (221B, xml)

Articles from Environmental Pollution (Barking, Essex : 1987) are provided here courtesy of Elsevier

RESOURCES