The World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Due to the global threat, many countries impose immediate lockdown. The impact of lockdown on the environmental pollutants and climate indicators gained considerable attention in the literature. This study aims to describe the variations in the environmental pollutants (CO, NO 2 , SO 2 , PM 2.5 and PM 10) with and without the lockdown period in the majorly hit states and provinces of the USA and China, respectively. Data during the first quarter year of 2019 and 2020 (lockdown period) was used in this study. Moreover, the effect of these pollutants on the pandemic spread was also studied. The results illustrated that the overall concentrations of CO, NO 2 and PM 2.5 were decreased by 19.28%, 36.7% and 1.10%, respectively, while PM 10 and SO 2 were increased by 27.81% and 3.81% respectively in five selected states of the USA during the lockdown period. However, in the case of chosen provinces of China, overall, the concentrations of all selected pollutants, i.e., CO, NO 2 , SO 2 , PM 2.5 and PM 10 , were reduced by 26.53%, 38.98%, 18.36%, 17.78% and 37.85%, respectively. The COVID-19 reported cases and deaths were significantly correlated with NO 2 , PM 2.5 and PM 10 in both China and the USA. The findings of this study concluded that the limited anthropogenic activities in the lockdown situation due to this novel pandemic disease result in a significant improvement of air quality by reducing the concentrations of environmental pollutants. As the trend goes on, the reduction of most pollutant concentrations is expected as long as partial or complete lockdown goes on.

The ubiquitous presence of microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) in the environment is an undeniable and serious concern due to their higher persistence and extensive use in agricultural production. This review highlights the sources and fate of MPs and NPs in soil and their uptake, translocation, and physiological effects in the plant system. We provide the current snapshot of the latest reported studies with the majority of literature spanning the last five years. We draw attention to the potential risk of MPs and NPs in modern agriculture and their effects on plant growth and development. We also highlight their uptake and transport pathways in roots and leaves via different exposure methods in plants. Conclusively, agricultural practices, climate changes (wet weather and heavy rainfall), and soil organisms play a major role in transporting MPs and NPs in soil. NPs are more prone to enter plant cell walls as compared to MPs. Furthermore, transpiration pull is the dominant factor in the plant uptake and translocation of plastic particles. MPs have negligible negative effects on plant physiological and biochemical indicators. Overall, there is a dire need to establish long-term studies for a better understanding of their fate and associated risks mechanisms in realistic environment scenarios for safe agricultural functions.

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Vanadium (V) as minor concentration is present in various plants and extensively found in soils. The current study was established to assess the response of rice seedlings to different V concentrations and also investigated its toxic effect on growth, photosynthetic assimilation, relative chlorophyll content, SPAD index, ion leakage, enzyme activities, hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2), and cell death. The rice seeds were sown in Petri dishes for 8 days, and after that, rice seedlings were grown hydroponically in a climate-controlled growth chamber. After 15 days of V-treatment, antioxidant enzyme activities, H 2 O 2 , protein contents, photosynthetic assimilation, relative chlorophyll content, and cell death were determined by utilizing the Spectrophotometer (Lambda 25 UV/VIS Spectrophotometer), and V accumulation (roots and shoots) was determined by GFAAS (GTA 120). The obtained results showed that all V concentrations significantly decreased the biomass (dry and fresh) and root growth as a result of the reduction in total root length, root tips, root fork, root surface area, and root crossing, and V was more accumulated in roots than shoots. Besides this, enzymatic activities were significantly enhanced under V stress. The findings also confirmed that seedling exposed to V stress had lower tolerance indices, photosynthetic activity, and protein contents while the ion leakage was consistently increased by increasing the V concentrations. The viability of plant cells severely damaged in response to high V stress, and H 2 O 2 induction might be responsible for cell death. Generally, all V doses had a drastic effect on enzyme activities and caused cell death of rice plans. Moreover, the current study demonstrated that V ≥ 35 mg L −1 caused damaging effects on rice plants.

The impact of environmental pollutants and climate indicators on the outbreak of COVID-19 has gained considerable attention in the recent literature. However, specific investigation of industrial economies like Germany is not available. This provides us motivation to examine the association between environmental pollutants, climate indicators and the COVID-19 cases, recoveries, and deaths in Germany using daily data from February 24, 2020, to July 02, 2020. The correlation analysis and wavelet transform coherence (WTC) approach are the analytical tools, which are used to explore the association between variables included in the study. Our findings indicate that PM2.5, O 3 , and NO 2 have a significant relationship with the outbreak of COVID-19. In addition, temperature is the only significant climate indicator which has significant correlation with the spread of COVID-19. Finally, PM10, humidity, and environmental quality index have a significant relationship only with the active cases from COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings conclude that Germany's successful response to COVID-19 is attributed to environmental legislation and the medical care system, which oversaw significant overhaul after the SARS and MERS outbreaks. The current study implicates that other industrial economies, especially European economies, that are still facing COVID-19 outbreak can follow the German model for pandemic response.

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