Environmental Management
X. Xie; E.Y. Naminse; S. Liu; Q. Yi
Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been identified as the main cause of the outbreak of the respiratory disease in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China in December 2019. Since then, the epidemic has spread rapidly throughout China and many other countries in the world. This study, therefore, examines ...
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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been identified as the main cause of the outbreak of the respiratory disease in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China in December 2019. Since then, the epidemic has spread rapidly throughout China and many other countries in the world. This study, therefore, examines the spatiotemporal distribution of the confirmed cases of COVID-19 and its effect on human development in China, and suggested social and non-pharmaceutical preventive interventions to help curb the further spread of the disease. The public open data available from January to February 2020, from the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China and a medical knowledge sharing website were used, and spatial analysis was performed to visualize the spatial distribution pattern of COVID-19 in China. The results showed among others that COVID-19 had entered a dispersed spatial pattern, resulting in increased pressure to control the spread of the disease. In early March, there was a significant reduction in the existing number of cases, and the number of deaths also decreased. At the provincial level, the spatial distribution of the number of cumulative confirmed cases in China was divided into four patterns: Hubei was the initial core region; the eastern provinces adjacent to Hubei formed the second concentrated pattern; the western provinces adjacent to Hubei and the northeastern and southeastern provinces which were separated from Hubei by one province belonged to the third distribution pattern; while the rest of the provinces in the north, south and west showing sporadic distribution patterns formed the fourth. It has been estimated that about 80% of students’ online learning at all schools were not effective due to lack of access to reliable and uninterrupted internet services especially in the rural areas of China.
Environmental Management
R.J. Isaifan
Abstract
The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported from Wuhan, China, on December 31st, 2019. As the number of coronavirus infections has exceeded 100,000 with toll deaths of about 5000 worldwide as of early March, 2020, scientists and researchers are racing to investigate the nature of ...
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The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported from Wuhan, China, on December 31st, 2019. As the number of coronavirus infections has exceeded 100,000 with toll deaths of about 5000 worldwide as of early March, 2020, scientists and researchers are racing to investigate the nature of this virus and evaluate the short and long term effects of this disease. Despite its negative impacts that obliged the World Health Organization to declare COVID-19 epidemic as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the rate of mortality of this infection has not exceeded 3.4% globally. On the other hand, the mortality rate caused by ambient air pollution has contributed to 7.6% of all deaths in 2016 worldwide. The outbreak of COVID-19 has forced China to lockdown its industrial activities and hence dropped its NO2 and carbon emissions by 30 and 25%, respectively. This work reports on the first case study that compares the air quality status before and after the crisis. It sheds light on the facts related to the demographics of deaths by gender, age and health status before infection. The historical data on air quality, estimates of annual deaths and its economic burden have been presented and analyzed. The actual daily deaths due to COVID-19 have been obtained from the official records of the daily Situation Reports published by World Health Organization as of March 11th. The rate of mortality due to COVID-19 was impacted by two factors: age and health status. Results show that 75% of deaths were related to cases that had underlying present diseases with the majority aged of 80+ years. The reported figures were compared with the average daily mortality due to poor air quality which reached up to 3287 deaths due to high levels of NO2, O3 and PM. The air quality status before the crisis was compared with the current situation showing that COVID-19 forced-industrial and anthropogenic activities lockdown may have saved more lives by preventing ambient air pollution than by preventing infection.