write a essay on life before and after coronavirus of 500 words
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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.
A novel infectious disease of coronavirus family was identified in Wuhan, China in late December 2019, which was later named as COVID-19 (Chen et al., 2020). 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 23rd, 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 shut down public transport, educational institutes, businesses centers, parks and other social interaction points to curtail the transmission of COVID-19. On January 30th, WHO declared worldwide public health emergency. In February, outbreaks 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 shut down 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 affected by pandemic. Global oil demand declined drastically and prices cut down sharply, as industrial and transport sectors came to halt 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).
NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) is a highly reactive pollutant and emitted especially from the combustion of fossil fuels. Traffic pollution is considered as the major source of NO2 emissions (He et al., 2020a, He et al., 2020b). NO2 is considered highly lethal to human health as studies shows that both short term and long term exposure to NO2 can increase mortality rate (Faustini) can increase mortality rate (Faustini et al., 2014). NO2 may cause bronchial hyper responsiveness, cellular inflammation and respiratory problems (He et al., 2020a, He et al., 2020b). 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).
2. Pollution assessment during COVID-19
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 exert 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 NO2 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). NASA and ESA release satellite images of various countries before and after lockdown