Implications of COVID-19 on The of Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) in Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: The novel coronavirus pandemic, namely COVID-19, has become a global public health problem. COVID-19 was first reported in Ethiopia on 14 March 2020 by WHO. This paper is aimed at identifying the implication of COVID-19 on the concentration of PM2.5 from March 14, 2020 to July 31, 2020 in Ethiopia. Methods: The study gathered the environmental data released by Addis Ababa Central monitoring station before and during the coronavirus pandemic and discusses its impact on air quality. Daily concentrations of PM2.5 were compared before and during the COVId-19 for 280 days. The study compared the daily concentration of PM2.5 before COVID-19 from October 25, 2019 to March 13, 2020 and during COVID-19 from March 14, 2020 to July 31, 2020. The summary of the particulate matter, number of cases and deaths from March 14, 2020 to July 31, 2020 were analyzed in Ethiopia.Results: The results show that, the concentration of PM2.5 during COVID-19 was higher than before COVID-19. As air pollution increased the number of deaths was increased during coronavirus pandemic. There were 16,615 confirmed cases and 263 number of deaths from March 14, 2020 to July 31, 2020 in Ethiopia. Conclusion: We found that the concentration of PM2.5 during COVID-19 was higher than before COVID-19. COVID-19 has implications for the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution in metropolitan city.

Safe to Breathe Analyses and Recommendations for Improving Ambient Air Quality Management in Ethiopia

“…First, COVID-19 affected air pollution in different ways: in many cities, the lockdown triggered lower vehicular traffic and industrial emissions (He et al, 2020); after the transition to partial relaxation, these concentrations often returned to prepandemic levels (Rybarczyk and Zalakeviciute, 2021). The situation is different in AA, where available research suggests that PM2.5 concentration was higher during the pandemic (March-July 2020) compared to prior months (October 2019-March 2020), primarily due to the lack of lockdown measures (Bulto et al, 2020). Second, it is important to note that long-term exposure to air pollution affected COVID-19 related mortality: for example, a study from Harvard Chan School of Public Health found that a 1 µg/m 3 increase in air pollution was associated with an 11 percent increase in mortality from COVID-19 infection in the United States (Wu et al, 2020).…”