COVID-19 and ITS ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS 


Will COVID-19 bring some positive change to the environment?

Today, as I am writing this article, 3 billion people are in lockdown. The streets and roads of more than 60 countries are abandoned and the skies have not seen any passenger plane in 30 countries for the last 7 days.

THE OUTBREAK OF COVID-19 


The world for the first time heard about a new virus on 10 Jan 2020, when a patient identified in Wuhan, city of china, which had symptoms like cough and difficulty in breathing. The doctors of china termed the disease COVID-19, a variant of SAR and MAR Novel Corona Virus. Within days the virus spread in the whole Wuhan city and then in China and hundreds of thousands of people suffer from it. It is a new kind of virus that spread and transmitted from one person to another very swiftly. China warned the world to take precautionary measure because they were afraid that despite their strict measures, they could not prevent the virus to cross the border but perhaps the world did not take their warning seriously and within one month the virus reached to more than 100 countries and now in more than 199 countries and territories. Health officials and the government s are fighting the virus. The disease is declared a pandemic by WHO and a serious threat to humanity more than any in world history.


In a matter of months, word had seen thousands dead and hundreds of thousands sick and suffering from COVID-19.

RESTRICTIONS DUE TO COVID-19 


Due to the pandemic, the world has to observe extensive travel restrictions. The trains have halted in every country. There is limited air and road transport. Roads are as empty as dead. The busy life of France, the USA, Britain, Italy, China and India is no more. People are ordered by the government to stay at home. Similarly, they are also afraid of the deadly virus and don’t want to come out of their homes.

The industrial and production units have stopped their production and instructed their labor and staff to restrict themselves from leaving homes. These restrictions on industries, aviation and transports have resulted in a good impact on the environment in addition to all negative impacts on society and economics.

The pollution and emissions of Greenhouse gases have fallen across the continents and the major Greenhouse gas contributor countries have also experienced good quality of air after a long time.
A scientific paper published in Nature, Herald, revealed that due to the COVID-19 the Ozone layer is healing and if this lockdown continues for some more days the layer will heal and recover completely. that will bring positive changes in the atmosphere and environment.

COVID-19 AND ENVIRONMENT


These are the unexpected consequences of the lockdown.
COVID-19 AND ENVIRONMENT

After the restriction, the pollution of the new york city has reduced by 50 percent. China's Greenhouse emissions reduce by 40 percent and the use of Coal reduces by 40 percent due to the limited production in China. The “Good Quality Air” increases by 11.2 percent in 334 cities of China, according to china's Ministry of Ecology and Environment. Satellite images of Europe show that Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) emissions are reducing day by day, over Italy, UK, and France.

COVID-19 has a great impact on every aspect of human life. People are losing lives, their social and economic activities have become limited. World Stock Exchanges are plunging. Every country is announcing relief packages to counter the devastating impacts of COVID-19.

The highest relief package that is announced by the US government to give support to their economy and people who are losing money in the equity market and losing jobs. USA is now the epicenter of the COVID-19. More than 100 thousand people are suffering from the disease and the figure is swelling up with every hour passed. Investors lose 2 trillion dollars in the equity market and maybe suffering more because there is no hope of any relief in the next week or two.
The question is that, when are we going to control this disease and it's spreading and when we will be coming back to normal life?

What will happen when this all will be ended and life will go on as normal as it was before the pandemic?


 Will the positive environmental impacts due to COVID-19 last longer or not?

This will not last long, once the pandemic is over, state by Pakistani environmentalist, Farooq. According to Farooq, such positive impacts were seen in the US, in 2008 Recession, when the industrial sector was collapsed but once the recession was over the industries stroked back with more zeal and Greenhouse gas emissions had increased and hurt the ozone layer. This is so likely to happen again, once the pandemic is over the industries will start their production with more speed and the people who are bored in their house will come out of their house and the aviation will rush to the skies and that will again start affecting the atmosphere and the environment.

This perhaps the time for the researchers to think about the future of the world, how human activities are affecting the globe and its ecosystem. The researchers must now devise a plan for the future to transfer to sustainability. Because now we know that a few days' silence of the people can bring such a major eco-friendly impact on earth environment. We much replace our dependence on eco-friendly sustainable energy sources and to avoid the use of fossil fuels. In this lockdown, we have ample time to thinks about the future of the earth, our future and of our next generations.

We need to understand, what we have done to our earth?

 We have exploited it to the extent that now we are not able to control any catastrophe or tragedy because nature has no more able to help the human and human itself is so weak to help itself.
A healthy environment is now very necessary for us. It’s time to take solid steps toward the environment because if we have a healthy environment, there will be no outbreak of disease and virus-like Novel Corona Virus of COVID-19. 

ARTICLE WRITTEN BY
ISHAQ KHAN
ishaqkakar66@gmail.com

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