Citation: Aboagye EM, Owusu NO. “Air pollution arrested not imprisoned”: The impact of laws invoked on Covid-19 city lockdowns. J Clin Images Med Case Rep. 2021; 2(4): 1275.

Introduction

Air pollution continues to be an environmental problem that poses a lot of health risks to the young and aged. Developed countries have invested heavily to curb this environmental problem, causing severe threats to human lives, yet the results do not look convincing. In developing countries, the situation is difficult than they can imagine, resulting in governments borrowing to fight what looks like a lost battle [1-3]. The in-depth study of this environmental menace - air pollution, suggests that the government enacts stringent measures to help fight this battle. This is because air pollution has natural (volcanic eruption) and anthropogenic (human activities) causes. In December 2019, the deadly Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak was soon declared as a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) [4]. Majority of countries have had their share of the impact of this outbreak. Many countries resorted to city lockdown to strictly control the movement of people and economic activities as recommended by WHO.

Movement of people and economic activities within a geographical area contributes heavily to the increase in air pollution. As a counter measure to Covid-19, various governments introduced self-isolation and restricted events hosted in public places. Also, there were city lockdowns that prevented the movement of people freely. The fact that mobility of people and economic activities have been curtailed means that activities like the burning of fuels by industries and transportation have reduced drastically; hence there will be a decrease in air pollution. This implies that the laws invoked as a countermeasure to Covid-19 contribute to fighting air pollution and not only serve as a restriction. However, these laws that have served as restrictive measures and a decrease in air pollution are temporal. They serve as a blueprint for government to redefine its approach to battling air pollution. Governments should now think about strengthening their laws after Covid-19 better to win the battle against air pollution [6]. The worrying issue now is that as countries recover from Covid-19 and ease restrictions, economic activities will be back to normal, which will mean that air quality experienced during the lockdowns has been short-lived; hence “air pollution has been arrested and not imprisoned.” Therefore, governments and various policymakers are urged to make good use of the laws that have been invoked against Covid-19 as a cost effective countermeasure to fight the battle against air pollution even after the pandemic is controlled. This will ensure improvement in air quality and hence ensure good health conditions for the young and aged.

References

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