Implemented Lockdown Measures Research Articles

Impact of reduced anthropogenic emissions during COVID-19 on air quality in India

Abstract. To mitigate the impacts of the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Indian government implemented lockdown measures on 24 March 2020, which prohibited unnecessary anthropogenic activities, thus leading to a significant reduction in emissions. To investigate the impacts of this lockdown measure on air quality in India, we used the Community Multi-Scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model to estimate the changes of key air pollutants. From pre-lockdown to lockdown periods, improved air quality is observed in India, indicated by the lower key pollutant levels such as PM2.5 (−26 %), maximum daily 8 h average ozone (MDA8 O3) (−11 %), NO2 (−50 %), and SO2 (−14 %). In addition, changes in these pollutants show distinct spatial variations with the more important decrease in northern and western India. During the lockdown, our results illustrate that such emission reductions play a positive role in the improvement of air quality. Significant reductions of PM2.5 concentration and its major components are predicted, especially for secondary inorganic aerosols that are up to 92 %, 57 %, and 79 % for nitrate (NO3-), sulfate (SO42-), and ammonium (NH4+), respectively. On average, the MDA8 O3 also decreases 15 % during the lockdown period although it increases slightly in some VOC-limited urban locations, which is mainly due to the more significant reduction of NOx than VOCs. More aggressive and localized emission control strategies should be implemented in India to mitigate air pollution in the future.

Need for Testing and Supplementation of Vitamin D3 After Release of COVID-19 Lockdown in Patients with Increased Musculoskeletal Pain.

AimsTo evaluate vitamin D3 levels in patients who presented with increased musculo-skeletal pain after release of lockdown period when compared to pre-lockdown status.IntroductionDuring this COVID pandemic, many countries have implemented lockdown measures and people have to work from home and many students and workers have to restrict themselves to home. During this period, their outdoor activities were limited. After the partial release of this lockdown many of them started to have some kind of physical activity and started experiencing body pains. We evaluated such patients for vitamin D3 levels and symptoms of fibromyalgia.MethodsThis is a retrospective analysis of patients from age group 18–60 presented to outpatient department or on telephonic consultation after partial release of lockdown. All patients who had mild back ache before lockdown and had symptoms exaggerated during this lockdown release were included. All patients were investigated for vitamin D3, PTH, thyroid profile, liver functional and kidney functional tests.ResultsOut of 120 patients presented to us in a period of 3 months, 31 patients had increased symptoms when compared to pre-lockdown status. 20 out of 31 patients had low vitamin D3 levels. 14 patients also developed symptoms of fibromyalgia.ConclusionThere might be many reasons for increased pain during lockdown, but we focussed specially only on vitamin D3 because of its association with increased symptoms of COVID-19. This is a gentle reminder to test for vitamin D3 levels and supplement if found deficient.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43465-021-00376-8.

Dutch COVID-19 lockdown measures increased trust in government and trust in science: A difference-in-differences analysis.

Many governments have implemented strict lockdown measures to prevent the transmission of the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Compliance with these restrictions is vital and depends greatly on the level of trust in the institutions central to their development and implementation. The objectives of this study were to assess: (1) the effects of the Dutch lockdown measures imposed in March 2020 on trust in government and trust in science; and (2) whether these differ across social groups. We draw on unique data from the high-quality Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences panel, which comprises a true probability sample of Dutch households (average participation rate: 80.4%). Our data were collected on an ongoing basis from December 2017 to March 2020 (n=2219). Using the implementation of lockdown measures in mid-March as a natural experiment, we employed difference-in-differences analyses to assess the causal effect of the Dutch lockdown measures on trust in government and trust in science. We estimated that the imposition of the measures caused an 18% increase (95% confidence interval (CI):15%-21%)) in trust in government and a 6% increase (95% CI: 4%-8%) in trust in science. The impact on trust in government was greater among the participants aged 65 and older and those with poor self-assessed health, although the relevant CIs were wide and, in the case of self-assessed health, included the null. No differential effects were observed for trust in science. Our study indicates that the strict public-health measures imposed in the Netherlands during an acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic generated trust in the institutions involved in drafting and implementing them, especially among those with a higher risk of serious health outcomes. This suggests that, to prevent a major public-health crisis, people appreciate firm government intervention during the acute phase of an infectious disease pandemic.

Suicide Presentations to an Emergency Department Pre and During the COVID Lockdown, March–May 2020, in Spain

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown may affect suicide risk and behavior. We compared suicide-related presentations during the national quarantine with pre-COVID data. This observational incidence study compared all suicide-related presentations at the University Hospital Reina Sofia emergency department (ED) in Cordoba, Spain, for the lockdown period from 15 March to 15 May 2020, with the same period in 2019. Descriptive and inferential analyses of case characteristics between 2019 and 2020 periods were conducted, and a multivariable logistic regression model developed. Results: Despite a decrease in overall ED cases during the lockdown, the number of suicide-related presentations stayed the same and represented a significantly larger proportion of cases in comparison to the pre-COVID period (0.42 vs. 0.87%, in 2019 and 2020, respectively; p < .001). The number presenting alone more than doubled during the COVID lockdown, increasing to 42.9% compared with 19.4% in 2019 (p = .002). An increase in presentations with a family history of suicide was also found. Conclusions: Suicide cases represented an increased proportion of ED cases during the lockdown. Presenting to ED alone, having a family history of suicide, habitual drug consumption, and hospital admission to ICU differentiated cases between pre and during COVID periods. These findings should be considered in light of the second wave and further implementation of lockdown measures.

Analysis on the Characteristics of Air Pollution in China during the COVID-19 Outbreak

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a serious global threat to human health. In China, the government immediately implemented lockdown measures to curb the spread of this virus. These measures severely affected transportation and industrial production across the country, resulting in a significant change in the concentration of air pollutants. In this study, the Euclidean distance method was used to select the most similar meteorological field during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Changes in the concentration of air pollutants in China were analyzed under similar meteorological background conditions. Results indicate that, compared with data from 2015–2019, air quality in China significantly improved; with the exception of ozone (O3), the concentration of major air pollutants declined. Compared with baseline conditions, the reduction of air pollutants in China from 25 January to 22 February 2020 (Period 2) was the most significant. In particular, NO2 decreased by 41.7% in the Yangtze River Delta. In Period 2, the reduction of air pollutants in areas other than Hubei gradually decreased, but the reduction of NO2 in Wuhan reached 61.92%, and the reduction of air pollutants in various regions after February 23 was significantly reduced. By excluding the influence of meteorological factors and calculating the contribution of human activities to atmospheric pollutants by linear fitting, in Period 2 the effect of artificial controls on NO2 in Wuhan attained 30.66%, and reached 48.17% from 23 February to 23 March (Period 3). Results from this investigation provides effective theoretical support for pollution prevention and control in China.

Changes in the concentration of air pollutants before and after the COVID-19 blockade period and their correlation with vegetation coverage

In order to control the spread of COVID-19, China had implemented strict lockdown measures. The closure of cities had had a huge impact on human production and consumption activities, which had greatly reduced population mobility. This article used air pollutant data from 341 cities in mainland China and divided these cities into seven major regions based on geographic conditions and climatic environment. The impact of urban blockade on air quality during COVID-19 was studied from the perspectives of time, space, and season. In addition, this article used Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to systematically analyze the characteristics of air pollution in the country and used the Pearson correlation coefficient to explore the relationship between NDVI and the air pollutant concentrations during the COVID-19 period. Then, linear regression was used to find the quantitative relationship between NDVI and AQI, and the fitting effect of the model was found to be significant through t test. Finally, some countermeasures were proposed based on the analysis results, and suggestions were provided for improving air quality. This paper has drawn the following conclusions: (1) the concentration of pollutants varied greatly in different regions, and the causes of their pollution sources were also different. The region with the largest decline in AQI was the Northeast China (60.01%), while the AQI in the southwest China had the smallest change range, and its value had increased by 1.72%. In addition, after the implementation of the city blockade, the concentration of NO2 in different regions dropped the most, but the increase in O3 was more obvious. (2) Higher vegetation coverage would have a beneficial impact on the atmospheric environment. Areas with higher NDVI values have relatively low AQI. There is a negative correlation between NDVI and AQI, and an average increase of 0.1 in NDVI will reduce AQI by 3.75 (95% confidence interval). In the case of less human intervention, the higher the vegetation coverage, the lower the local pollutant concentration will be. Therefore, the degree of vegetation coverage would have a direct or indirect impact on air pollution.

Demand for self-managed online telemedicine abortion in eight European countries during the COVID-19 pandemic: a regression discontinuity analysis

ObjectivesIn most European countries, patients seeking medication abortion during the COVID-19 pandemic are still required to attend healthcare settings in person. We assessed whether demand for self-managed medication abortion provided...

ALeRT-COVID: Attentive Lockdown-awaRe Transfer Learning for Predicting COVID-19 Pandemics in Different Countries.

Countries across the world are in different stages of COVID-19 trajectory, among which many have implemented lockdown measures to prevent its spread. Although the lockdown is effective in such prevention, it may put the economy into a depression. Predicting the epidemic progression with the government switching the lockdown on or off is critical. We propose a transfer learning approach called ALeRT-COVID using attention-based recurrent neural network (RNN) architecture to predict the epidemic trends for different countries. A source model was trained on the pre-defined source countries and then transferred to each target country. The lockdown measure was introduced to our model as a predictor and the attention mechanism was utilized to learn the different contributions of the confirmed cases in the past days to the future trend. Results demonstrated that the transfer learning strategy is helpful especially for early-stage countries. By introducing the lockdown predictor and the attention mechanism, ALeRT-COVID showed a significant improvement in the prediction performance. We predicted the confirmed cases in 1 week when extending and easing lockdown separately. Our results show that lockdown measures are still necessary for several countries. We expect our research can help different countries to make better decisions on the lockdown measures.

A proposed framework to limit post-lockdown community transmission of COVID-19 in Africa.

As of March 11, 2021, 3,992,044 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and 106,615 deaths (case fatality rate 2.67%) have been reported on the African continent. In March 2020, even before the first case of COVID-19 was registered, some African countries implemented total lockdown measures, which limited movement of people, banned mass gatherings, and closed schools and borders. However, these control measures, which affect individuals and society's well-being, cannot be implemented for a long time. There is an urgent need for a robust framework to guide African countries to make evidence-based decisions on easing these restrictive measures and reapply them when the infection rates increase significantly. This article presents a proposed framework to guide lockdown easing while limiting the community spread of COVID-19 in Africa. Due to lack of information on the impact of relaxing restrictions on peoples' movement on the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent for COVID-19) and how businesses will respond, it is almost clear that there is no single grand lockdown exit strategy. African governments should develop flexible, iterative lockdown exit plans based on epidemiological disease data, economic indicators, and peoples' views to inform decisions, all of which are paramount for success. A phased approach of changes and willingness to adapt methods will allow governments to minimize the pandemic's adverse impact and respond accordingly as new control tools become available.

The Impact of COVID-19 and its Policy Responses on Local Economy and Health Conditions

U.S. states have implemented lockdown measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. We assess the impact of state policy responses on local economic and health conditions, with the goal to shed light on marginal health benefits and economic costs associated with social distancing. We find that lockdown measures are effective in alleviating disease severity, but yield significant contraction of the economy. Deteriorating health conditions are disruptive to the labor supply, financial health, and economic output. The adverse economic impact of lockdowns exceeds the economic damage brought by the disease itself, but health conditions have better ability of forecasting economic contraction outcomes.

Cannabis and COVID-19: Reasons for Concern.

The lockdown measures implemented to curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2 may affect (illicit) drug consumption patterns. This rapid response study investigated changes in cannabis use in a non-probability sample of cannabis users in the Netherlands during the early lockdown period. We fielded an online cross-sectional survey 4–6 weeks after implementation of lockdown measures in the Netherlands on March 15, 2020. We measured self-reported \\motives for changes in use, and assessed cannabis use frequency (use days), number of joints per typical use day, and route of administration in the periods before and after lockdown implementation. 1,563 cannabis users were recruited. Mean age was 32.7 ± 12.0 years; 66.3% were male and 67.9% used cannabis (almost) daily. In total, 41.3% of all respondents indicated that they had increased their cannabis use since the lockdown measures, 49.4% used as often as before, 6.6% used less often, and 2.8% stopped (temporarily). One-third of those who were not daily users before the lockdown became (almost) daily users. Before the lockdown, most respondents (91.4%) used cannabis in a joint mixed with tobacco and 87.6% still did so. Among users of joints, 39.4% reported an increase in the average number consumed per use day; 54.2% stayed the same and 6.4% used fewer joints. This rapid response study found evidence that during the lockdown more users increased rather than decreased cannabis consumption according to both frequency and quantity. These data highlight the need to invest more resources in supporting cessation, harm reduction, and monitoring longer term trends in cannabis use.

Fighting Covid-19 Strength and Challenges of Community

In this 21st century, the whole globe is facing the pandemic of Covid- 19. This infectious disease has extended its clutches over all the nations. This is a novel virus, which has no any definite treatment modality till date. Many nations have implemented Lockdown measures, to prevent and cut down the chain of spread of this infectious pandemic. On one hand, the medical fraternity is fighting with this disease and on the other hand, the scientists are tirelessly involved in the development of a definitive medicine or vaccination for the disease. The whole world is following the golden principle of "Handwashing, Wearing masks and social distancing "to prevent the spread of the disease. This is the time when the whole humanity is thriving hard to improve the overall immunity to safeguard them from this Pandemic. This article is focussing on an overall view of the pandemic – Covid-19, its origin, its manifestations, precautionary measures, treatment modalities used and preventive measures. Thus a wave of awareness can be generated among the common man regarding this global Pandemic.

Responses of decline in air pollution and recovery associated with COVID-19 lockdown in the Pearl River Delta

The Guangdong government implemented lockdown measures on January 23, 2020, to ease the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). These measures prohibit a series of human activities and lead to a great reduction in anthropogenic emissions. Starting on February 20, all companies resumed work and production, and emissions gradually recovered. To investigate the response of air pollutants in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) to the emission reduction and recovery related to COVID-19 lockdown, we used the Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model to estimate the changes in air pollutants, including three periods: Period I (January 10 to January 22, 2020), Period II (January 23 to February 19, 2020), Period III (February 20 to March 9, 2020). During Period II, under the concurrent influence of emissions and meteorology, air quality improved significantly with PM2.5, NO2, and SO2 decreased by 52%, 67%, and 25%, respectively. O3 had no obvious changes in most cities, which mainly due to the synergetic effects of emissions and meteorology. In Period III, with the recovery of emissions and the changes in meteorology, the increase of secondary components was faster than that of primary PM2.5 (PPM), which indicated that changes in PPM concentration were more sensitive to emissions reduction. O3 concentration increased as emission and temperature rising. Our findings elucidate that more effective emission control strategies should be implemented in PRD to alleviate the increasingly serious pollution situation.

Changes in source contributions to particle number concentrations after the COVID-19 outbreak: Insights from a dispersion normalized PMF

Factor analysis models use the covariance of measured variables to identify and apportion sources. These models, particularly positive matrix factorization (PMF), have been extensively used for analyzing particle number concentrations (PNCs) datasets. However, the variation of observed PNCs and particle size distribution are driven by both the source emission rates and atmospheric dispersion as well as chemical and physical transformation processes. This variation in the observation data caused by meteorologically induced dilution reduces the ability to obtain accurate source apportionment results. To reduce the influence of dilution on quantitative source estimates, a methodology for improving the accuracy of source apportionment results by incorporating a measure of dispersion, the ventilation coefficient, into the PMF analysis (called dispersion normalized PMF, DN-PMF) was applied to a PNC dataset measured from a field campaign that includes the Spring Festival event and the start of the COVID-19 lockdown in Tianjin, China. The data also included gaseous pollutants and hourly PM2.5 compositional data. Eight factors were resolved and interpreted as municipal incinerator, traffic nucleation, secondary inorganic aerosol (SIA), traffic emissions, photonucleation, coal combustion, residential heating and festival emissions. The DN-PMF enhanced the diel patterns of photonucleation and the two traffic factors by enlarging the differences between daytime peak values and nighttime concentrations. The municipal incinerator plant, traffic emissions, and coal combustion have cleaner and more clearly defined directionalities after dispersion normalization. Thus, dispersion normalized PMF is capable of enhancing the source emission patterns. After the COVID-19 lockdown began, PNC of traffic nucleation and traffic emissions decreased by 41% and 44%, respectively, while photonucleation produced more particles likely due to the reduction in the condensation sink. The significant changes in source emissions indicate a substantially reduced traffic volume after the implement of lockdown measures.

Air Quality Changes in Shanghai, China, and the Surrounding Urban Agglomeration During the COVID-19 Lockdown

COVID-2019 (COronaVIrus Disease 2019), discovered at the end of December 2019, has spread around the world, becoming a pandemic. To prevent its spread, many governments implemented strict lockdown measures, including the closure of factories and limitations on travel. These measures led to a decrease in human activity, affecting air pollutant emissions. This study evaluates air quality during the partial lockdown of Shanghai, the largest city in China, and the broader Yangtze River Delta region. It was found that daily concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, and CO during the lockdown period were reduced by 9%, 77%, 31.3%, 60.4%, and 3% respectively, compared to the same period in 2019. Even with decreasing concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10, the overall values are still more than four times higher for the lockdown period than the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends for safe concentrations (10 μg/m3 and 20 μg/m3). This indicates the existence of other background sources that continue to make a significant contribution to air pollution in the region even with severe reductions in human activity. This study may be used to guide environmental policy, as it demonstrates to what extent the control of pollution sources can improve air quality.

Observed reduction in the diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To contain the spread of the new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Norwegian government implemented lock-down restrictions from 13.03.2020: schools, day cares and after-school activities were closed, 2-week quarantine was required following international travel, physical distancing (2 metres) was recommended and groups were restricted to 5 people.

Political polarization in US residents' COVID-19 risk perceptions, policy preferences, and protective behaviors.

When the novel coronavirus entered the US, most US states implemented lockdown measures. In April–May 2020, state governments started political discussions about whether it would be worth the risk to reduce protective measures. In a highly politicized environment, risk perceptions and preferences for risk mitigation may vary by political inclinations. In April–May 2020, we surveyed a nationally representative sample of 5517 members of the University of Southern California’s Understanding America Study. Of those, 37% identified as Democrats, 32% as Republican, and 31% as Third Party/Independent. Overall, Democrats perceived more risk associated with COVID-19 than Republicans, including for getting infected, being hospitalized and dying if infected, as well as running out of money as a result of the pandemic. Democrats were also more likely than Republicans to express concerns that states would lift economic restrictions too quickly, and to report mask use and social distancing. Generally, participants who identified as Third Party/Independent fell in between. Democrats were more likely to report watching MSNBC or CNN (vs. not), while Republicans were more likely to report watching Fox News (vs. not), and Third Party/Independents tended to watch neither. However, political inclinations predicted reported policy preferences, mask use, and social distancing, in analyses that accounted for differences in use of media sources, risk perceptions, and demographic background. In these analyses, participants’ reported media use added to the partisan divide in preferences for the timing of lifting economic restrictions and reported protective behaviors. Implications for risk communication are discussed.Supplementary InformationThe online version of this article (10.1007/s11166-020-09336-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Creating and applying SIR modified compartmental model for calculation of COVID-19 lockdown efficiency.

We propose a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) modified model for Coronavirus disease - 2019 (COVID-19) spread to estimate the efficacy of lockdown measures introduced during the pandemic. As input data, we used COVID-19 epidemiological information collected in fifteen European countries either in private surveys or using official statistics. Thirteen countries implemented lockdown measures, two countries (Sweden, Iceland) not. As output parameters, we studied herd immunity level and time of formation. Comparison of these parameters was used as an indicator of effectiveness / ineffectiveness of lockdown measures. In the absence of a medical vaccine, herd immunity may be regarded as a factor of population adaptation to severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus-2, the viral pathogen causing COVID-19 disease (SARS-CoV-2), and hence COVID-19 spreading stop. We demonstrated that there is no significant difference between lockdown and no-lockdown modes of COVID-19 containment, in terms of both herd immunity level and the time of achieving its maximum. The rationale for personal and business lockdowns may be found in the avoidance of healthcare system overburdening. However, lockdowns do not prevent any virus with droplet transmission (including SARS-CoV-2) from spreading. Therefore, in case of a future viral pathogen emergence, lockdown measures efficiency should not be overestimated, as it was done almost universally in the world during COVID-19 pandemic.

The impact of COVID-19 on the gender division of childcare work in Hungary

ABSTRACT As most other EU countries, Hungary implemented severe lockdown measures during the pandemic, including the closure of the schools and childcare facilities. This meant that for several months a vastly increased volume of childcare had to be supplied by individual households without much institutional help. In the end of May 2020, we conducted a representative survey in Hungary to find out how the pandemic affected the gendered division of these childcare duties. We found that on average, in relative terms, men have increased their contributions at roughly the same rate (by 35 percent) as women. But given that women had been doing a lot more childcare work before the pandemic, in absolute terms, women’s contributions grew significantly more than men’s and the gap between men and women has increased in absolute work hour terms. This was particularly so among a specific group of women: middle class, highly educated city-dwellers. Our data suggest that in Hungary the pandemic increased gender inequality the most among the highest educated.

Dental treatment during the lock down period - safe or not

The coronavirus causing COVID-19 is officially named as SARS-CoV-2. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which originated in Wuhan, China, has become a major public health concern all over the World. Infection control measures are necessary to stop the virus from spreading further and help to manage the pandemic situation. Many countries have implemented lockdown measures and social distancing to slow down or prevent the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. This implementation is believed to possess a significantly decreased rate of growth and increased doubling time of cases. Due to the spread through respiratory droplets, the incidence of infection will be high between patients and dental practitioners. The dental clinics and hospitals within the containment areas of COVID-19 should follow infection control protocols precisely in order to confer safety to both the patients and the practitioners. This article thus provides important and requisite knowledge about COVID-19 and therefore, the restrictions and strict protocols to be followed for or while undertaking dental treatment during the crucial lockdown period of COVID-19.