Air Pollutants Reductions During and after the COVID-19 Lockdown and Their Impact on Mortality in China

Abstract

Background: Strict lockdown measurements implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic have dramatically reduced the anthropogenic-based emissions in China. We aimed to comprehensively describe air pollution during and after the COVID-19 lockdown in China, and to estimate the mortality burden related to the air pollution changes.Methods: We analyzed national air quality monitoring and mortality data to describe the changes of air pollutants, and to estimate the health impact from air pollution changes during and after the lockdown periods in 2020 compared with 2018-2019. Changes in number of deaths and years of life lost (YLL) were used as indicators in the estimations.Findings: The mean air quality index (AQI), PM10, PM2·5, NO2, SO2 and CO concentrations during the lockdown period in 2020 across China declined by 18·2 (21·2%), 27·0μg/m3 (28·9%), 10.5μg/m3 (18·3%), 8·4μg/m3 (44·2%), 13·1μg/m3 (38·8%), and 0·3mg/m3 (27·3%) respectively, when compared to the same periods during 2018-2019 . We observed an increase in O3 concentration during the lockdown by 5·5μg/m3 (10·4%), and a slight decrease after the lockdown by 3·4μg/m3 (4·4%). As a result, there were 51·3 (95%CI: 32·2, 70·1) thousand fewer premature deaths (16·2 thousand during and 35·1 thousand after the lockdown), and 1,066·8 (95%CI: 668·7, 1,456·8) thousand fewer YLLs (343·3 thousand during and 723·5 thousand after the lockdown) than these in 2018-2019 in China.Interpretation: The COVID-19 lockdown has caused substantial decrease in air pollutant concentrations except for O3, which has been accompanied by substantial mortality reductions in China.Funding: Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province.Declaration of Interests: We declare no competing interests.Ethics Approval Statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (W96-027E-2020004).