COVID-19 outbreak and air quality of Lahore, Pakistan: evidence from asymmetric causality analysis

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on the air quality of Lahore city of Pakistan for the period 26th February, 2020 to 31st August, 2020. The study employs asymmetrical Granger causality tests for analyzing the effects of COVID-19 cases and deaths on particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) emissions in the city. The results show positive shocks in COVID-19 cases and deaths improve the air quality of the city. This implies that the pandemic has lowered down environmental pressure in one of the top most polluted cities of the world. Further, the problem of hazardous air pollution in Lahore city is manmade mainly caused by everyday human activities. When these human activities were restricted owing to a rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths, the air pollution in the city resultantly reduces. Therefore, this study recommends controlling unnecessary production and consumption activities that degrades the environment so that air pollution in the city can be manageable after the COVID-19.

Association Between Weather Parameters and SARS‐CoV‐2 Confirmed Cases in Two South African Cities

“…( 2021 ) posited that lockdown levels as adopted in the country had a significant impact on the country's air quality. In addition, in another study carried out in Lahore, Pakistan, it was observed that as a result of the lockdown effect, even though the country recorded increasing COVID‐19 cases, the air pollution in the city reduces (Tauqir & Kashif, 2021 ). In another study conducted in India, the authors (Agarwal et al., 2021 ) observed that during the period of their study, vehicular movement was minimum as a result of COVID‐19 lockdown.…”

“…Similarly, all parameters in Pretoria require first order differencing for stationarity except the number of cases which was stationary. This approach has been used to investigate the relationship between COVID‐19 cases and fatalities with various atmospheric parameters (Becchetti et al., 2020 ; Habib et al., 2021 ; Kamigauti et al., 2021 ; Pata, 2020 ; Tauqir & Kashif, 2021 ).…”