The Impact of Movement Control Order (MCO) during Pandemic COVID-19 on Local Air Quality in an Urban Area of Klang Valley, Malaysia

Abstract

The world is currently going through the COVID-19 pandemic which has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in just a few months. Considering the need for lockdown measures, most countries, including Malaysia, have implemented 'Movement Control Orders' (MCOs) as a prevention step to reduce the deadly spread of this disease. Local and worldwide media have reported the immediate improvement of air quality due to this event. Nevertheless, data on the effects of MCOs on air quality at local scales are still sparse. Here, we investigate changes in air quality during the MCO at an urban area using the air sensor network AiRBOXSense which measures monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM 2.5 and PM 10). In this study, air pollutant data during normal days were compared with MCO days using a reference analyser and AiRBOXSense. The results showed that the levels of the measured pollutants dropped by ~20 to 60% during the MCO days at most locations. However, CO in Kota Damansara (KD) dropped to 48.7%, but PM 2.5 and PM 10 increased up to 60% and 9.7% respectively during MCO days. Local burning activities in the residential area of KD are believed to be the main cause of the increased PM levels. This study has proven that air pollutant levels have significantly fallen due to the MCO. This air quality level information showed that the reduction of air pollutants can be achieved if traffic and industry emissions are strictly controlled.

Diurnal and weekly patterns of primary pollutants in Beijing under COVID-19 restrictions

“…Although not without historic precedent 2 , these were attempts to limit transmission of the disease at a global scale. The widespread social and economic disruption imposed by the restrictions, affected the emission of air pollutants and often saw lowered concentrations that were reported in a rapidly growing list of studies from: Europe 3,4 , India 5 , South East Asia 6,7 , US 8 and South America 9,10 . However, the influence of such controls on air quality was first observed for Hubei Province and more broadly within the Jingjinji megalopolis of China 8,[11][12][13][14][15][16] .…”

Effect of Fireworks, Chinese New Year and the COVID-19 Lockdown on Air Pollution and Public Attitudes

“…Yue et al (2020) suggest carbon emissions decreased by 9.8% in 2020 compared to February-March/2019. Reduced emissions have allowed numerous observations of reduced air pollutants from satellite (Bauwens et al, 2020) and within China (Bao and Zhang, 2020;Cole et al, 2020;Dutheil et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2020;Muhammad et al, 2020;Wang and Su, 2020;Xu et al, 2020;Yue et al, 2020), India (Sharma et al, 2020), South East Asia (Abdullah et al, 2020;Mohd Nadzir et al, 2020), Europe (Lewis, 2020;Tobías et al, 2020), US (Muhammad, et al, 2020) and South America (Dantas et al, 2020;Nakada and Urban, 2020). The work has often been at an early stage and publications difficult to assess (London et al, 2020;Servick and Enserink, 2020).…”

Particulate matter (PM2.5) as a potential SARS-CoV-2 carrier

“…PM 2.5 is ne solid aerosols with a particle diameterof ≤ 2.5 μm that is suspended in ambient air. PM 2.5 inindoor environments is largely derived from common outdoor sourcessuch as motor-vehicles, biomass burning, and industrialemissions 12,13,14 . Prolonged exposure toPM 2.5 is particularly detrimental to human health asthis ne particulate matter can be easily inhaled and penetratedeep into the lungs 15,16 .…”

“…Indoor PM 2.5 : We measuredPM 2.5 using an in-house air qualitysensor 12,26 , AiRBOXSense (see SI forspeci cations). This was in tandem with sampling ofPM 2.5 on lter papers using a Low Volume Sampler (LVS)(see SI for details).…”