COVID-19 disease is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This infectious disease has spread worldwide placing enormous pressure on national health systems since it can cause hospitalization and lead to death. The first official outbreak was reported in Wuhan (China) in December 2019 and, as of January 4, 2022, the virus is already responsible for 5.46 million deaths worldwide and 1.54 million across Europe. Several local and national policy interventions have been implemented to prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, such as social distancing, stay at home requirements, international travel controls, and non-essential business closures. As a consequence of this unique global coordinated response, several urban areas across the world experienced an abrupt drop in air pollution levels. Given the substantive evidence on the short-term effects of air pollution on health, recent studies have suggested that the decrease in exposure of entire populations likely resulted in a reduction in excess mortality and morbidity in different location worldwide.
This study aims first to address all significant effects reported in the literature (i.e. weather correction, emission trends, atmospheric chemistry, and temporally-variant lockdown period of air pollution levels), then to analyse the impact of government responses in reducing the concentration of four pollutants [NO2, O3, PM2.5, and PM < 10 µm (PM10)] across 47 European cities (listed in Table 1 in the study), and finally to report the related preventable mortality for 46 locations (see “Data and methods”). This study contribute original evidence to the literature by estimating the decline of air pollution levels across Europe in association with the strictness of specific lockdown policies.
The full study was presented in Nature in January 2022:
In his article you can find a presentation of the study in 6 different languages: Investigating Europe’s life-saving lockdown policies | News | CORDIS | European Commission (europa.eu)
Figure 3 in the aricle displays maps of changes in each pollutant predicted with an 80% Stringency Index score (a value reached in most of the cities) across the European region.
Photo credit: Gunnell E. Sandanger/CICERO
