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Effect of Lockdown on the Air Quality of Four Major Cities in Pakistan During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Global Response to Contain the Spread of COVID-19 The greatest danger the virus poses is its capability of human-to-human transmis- sion. The first 100,000 cases were reported in 67 days, while the next 100,000 took only 11 days, and then only 4 days for the next 100,000 (Tahir & Masood, 2020). To pre- vent the spread of virus, various countries including but not limited to China, Brazil, Italy, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Germany, U.S., Turkey, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan imposed partial or complete lockdowns. The lockdown allowed people to leave their homes only in case of emergencies or as infrequently as possible (Chakraborty & Maity, 2020; Dantas et al., 2020; Das & Paital, 2020; Kerimray et al., 2020; Nakada & Urban, 2020; Paital et al., 2020; Saadat et al., 2020). Lockdown and social distancing have had a major negative impact on the economy, social life, and human psychology. One positive, unprecedented, and unexpected impact of lockdown was observed on the environment in terms of improved air qual- ity indices, such as reduction of CO 2 , NO 2 , and particulate matter (Gulseven et al., 2020; Paital, 2020; Paital et al., 2020; Tahir & Masood, 2020). Consequently, the risk of diseases associated with air pollution—such as bronchitis, asthma, other lung diseases, and heart attack risks—also decreased (Paital, 2020). Mehreen Khan, PhD Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Lahore School of Economics Muhammad Nawaz Chaudhry, PhD Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Lahore School of Economics Mustafa Anwar, PhD U.S.–Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Energy, National University of Sciences and Technology Uzma Ashraf, PhD Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Lahore School of Economics Haider Ali, MS Lahore School of Economics
+:;9*,; This study attempted to evaluate the effect of lockdown on the air quality of four major cities in Pakistan: Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, and Peshawar. Particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) concentration and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Air Quality Index (AQI) were used to determine air quality before and after lockdown. We found that air quality in all the cities improved after lockdown was imposed: PM 2.5 concentrations in Karachi and Lahore decreased by 62% and in Peshawar and Islamabad by 57% and 55%, respectively. AQI in Karachi and Islamabad improved from Unhealthy to Moderate and in Peshawar and Lahore from Unhealthy to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups. Formal complete lockdown in Pakistan was imposed on March 24, 2020, and lasted until May 10, 2020, after which partial or smart lockdown was still in place. Maximum improvement in air quality was observed in April 2020, with concentrations starting to increase in May 2020 following the ease of restrictions.
Introduction On December 31, 2019, 27 pneumonia cases of unknown etiology were reported in the city of Wuhan, which is the capital of Hubei Prov- ince in the People’s Republic of China (Huang et al., 2020; Jahangiri et al., 2020). Following sampling and testing, a novel coronavirus was detected and on January 7, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) named the dis- ease as severe acute respiratory syndrome coro- navirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19 (Sohrabi et al., 2020). After only 1 month of the COVID-19 out- break, WHO declared it a health emergency of international concern, as it could pose a high risk to countries with compromised health systems (Sohrabi et al., 2020). Within
a few weeks, the virus spread swiftly to doz- ens of countries. On January 20, 2020, the U.S. reported its first case and on January 24, 2020, Europe reported its first case (Dantas et al., 2020). In a short time, the virus spread to almost the entire world. In Pakistan, the Ministry of Health con- firmed the first case of coronavirus on Febru- ary 26, 2020, in Karachi, which is in the Sindh Province (Sarwar et al., 2020; Waris et al., 2020). As expected, cases continued to rise at a rapid rate. On June 7, 2020, when we stopped taking air quality measurements for this study, the number of confirmed cases in Pakistan was 98,943 and confirmed deaths was 2,002. As of November 2022, Pakistan had reported 1,574,549 cases and 30,629 deaths.
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