Global closures of cities, quarantine measures, curfews, people ’commitment to their homes and reduced movement after the Covid-19 outbreak reduced air pollution. According to the Dubai Future Foundation's Future Observatory.
The economist of environmental resources at Stanford University, Marshall Burke, made quick calculations of the recent decline in air pollution over parts of China and the impact of that on saving human lives, and published his accounts on the Code of Global Economic, Environmental and Food Dynamics.
Although these figures will not remain stable for a long time as a result of the improvement in the situation over time, Burke's calculations and at the very least estimates suggest that the lives saved locally as a result of reducing pollution caused by Coffid-19 deaths in China.
"The breathing of polluted air contributes a lot to early deaths, according to a wealth of evidence, and the natural question - even if it is strange - did the decrease in pollution caused by the economic turmoil caused by Covid-19 save more lives than the number of deaths?" The virus? I think the answer is clear, and it is yes, even with the most conservative assumptions. ”
Burke's calculations show that reducing pollution for two months saved the lives of about 4,000 children under the age of five and 73,000 adults over the age of 70 in China, and this number is much greater than the current global death toll from the virus.
Burke's analysis relied only on data from China, before information increased on how Covid-19 affected the rest of the world. With the second largest virus circulation concentrated in Italy, satellite data for northern Italy, after strict quarantine measures, showed a significant decrease in air pollution, as nitrogen dioxide specifically decreased, which is a gas emitted mainly by cars, trucks, power plants and some industrial plants .
"The low nitrogen dioxide emissions over the Po Valley in northern Italy are clear," said Klaus Zener, director of the European Space Agency's Copernicus Sentinel 5-B. Although there may be slight differences in the data due to cloud cover and weather changes, we are very confident that the apparent decrease in emissions will coincide with the quarantine causing traffic reduction and industrial activities. ”
These preliminary figures show that this global health catastrophe may constitute an opportunity to assess the necessities in aspects of modern life, and to know the possible positive changes, if we change our habits on a global scale.