COVID-19 lockdowns cause global air pollution declines with implications for public health risk

Zander S Venter; Kristin Aunan; Sourangsu Chowdhury; Jos Lelieveld

Furthermore, we performed a counterfactual projection of reduced health burden assuming 180 ground-level air pollution deviations experienced during lockdown ( Fig. S5 ) are maintained for the 181 remainder of 2020 (Apr-Dec). The cumulative effect of the reduction in NO2, O3 and PM2.5 over 182 the remainder of 2020 is that 0.78 (0.09 to 1.5) million deaths and 1.6 (0.8 to 2) million pediatric 183 asthma cases could be avoided ( Fig. 4 ; Table S3 ). Our findings suggest that, in spite of the 184 modest response of PM2.5, countries would have much to gain in maintaining PM2.5 lockdown 185 levels because that would prevent 0.6 (0.01 to 1.3) million deaths and 1.1 (0.4 to 1.4) million 186