Empirical evidence shows that air quality changes during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Jakarta, Indonesia are due to seasonal variation, not restricted movements

Comparing COVID-19 in the antipodes: Insights from pandemic containment strategies on both sides of the Pacific

“…Interestingly, Jakarta was the only city showing that air quality got worse even after a lockdown was established. This finding has been documented by Jakob et al (2022) , arguing that although human mobility and economic activities decreased during the lockdown, rainfall can explain the observed increase in PM 2.5 concentration. Therefore, comparing air quality pre- and during lockdown is misleading when seasonal variation and meteorological variables are not taken into account.…”

COVID-19 Lockdown Impact on Air Pollution: A Global Comparative Analysis

“…This study shows consistent results with previous literature and extends knowledge on important and drastic interventions to reduce air pollutants and improve air quality and environment. However, a study by Jakob et al (2022) stated that the decrease in pollutant concentrations observed is not related to the restrictive measures for COVID-19 but is associated with seasonal changes.…”

“…Other studies to determine the changes in the air quality based on the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in different countries have been performed by Kutralam-Muniasamy et al (2021) for Mexico city, Mor et al (2021) for Chandigarh, located in the Indo-Gangetic plain of India, , Chowdhuri et al (2022) for Kolkata Metropolitan Area (India), Das et al (2022) for Mumbai (India), Pal et al (2022) focused on Indian cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai, Sathe et al (2021) also analyzed some Indian cities (e.g., Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Kolkata), Wetchayont et al (2021) for Bangkok Metropolitan (Thailand), Jakob et al (2022) investigated the changes in the concentration of air pollutants of Jakarta (Indonesia), Upadhyay et al (2022) analyzed changes in levels of air quality in South Asia, Gao et al (2022) for Wuhan (China), Celik and Gul (2022) investigated the case study of Istanbul (Turkey), Anil and Alagha (2021) and Alharbi et al (2022) studied the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sbai et al (2021) the city of Lyon and the center of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region (France), Jeong et al (2022) conducted a similar study for Toronto (Canada), Gorrochategui et al (2022) analyzed the Barcelona metropolitan area and other parts of Catalonia, Skirienė et al (2021) examined the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and Sweden, as well as the Northern Italy region, etc.…”

Quantifying the Effects of Different Containment Policies on Urban NO₂ Decline: Evidence From Remote Sensing Integrated With Ground-Station Data

“…Observations from other mega-cities, such as New York [11], Tokyo [12], Moscow [7] and Toronto [13], also showed a decrease in NO2 concentrations during lockdowns. Nevertheless, some subsequent studies noted the possibility of exaggerating the positive effects of COVID-19 policies and pointed out that the improvement in air quality was not due to COVID-19 interventions but seasonal factors, as the lockdown period coincided with the onset of the rainy season in tropical regions, such as in Nigeria [14] and Indonesia [15]. This observation arises from the fact that most studies reported improvements in air quality based on comparisons between lockdowns and pre-lockdown periods or by taking the previous 3-to 5-year average level as the baseline.…”