impact of lockdown on environment essay

How did COVID-19 lockdowns affect the climate?

May 2021 - A new study shows how COVID-19 lockdowns have temporarily reduced global emissions of CO2 and other pollutants.

In this article, Met Office Research Fellow Chris Jones discusses the study and what it tells us about limiting global temperature rise.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive impact on our lives, and how we go about day-to-day business. It has directly affected millions of people and put our infrastructure under huge pressure. In this new study we look to see if the changes to our daily lives over the last 12 months have had an effect on the climate. On a global scale, the new study by Jones et al. (2021) (which is also the subject of a Research Spotlight in EOS)  finds very little changes are detectable, but the way that we rebuild our economies does offer an unprecedented opportunity to “build back better” and shows potential pathways to meet long-term climate goals.

Many nations, including the UK, responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by restricting travel and other activities during 2020, and into 2021. This caused a temporary reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution.

Empty roads in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic

Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have been increasing since the mid-1800s. Once in the atmosphere, these gases form a blanket around the planet trapping heat from the sun and increasing global temperatures. Aerosols , which are tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere, can also affect the Earth’s climate. Pollution from cars and factories is a major source of man-made aerosols but they can also be produced naturally. Aerosols play a key role in Earth’s energy balance through influencing the amount of energy from the sun that is either absorbed in the atmosphere or reflected back into space.  

Figure 1.  The map shows the average change in aerosols across the Earth system models. AOD refers to aerosol optical depth. Green shading shows regions with reduced aerosol amounts in the atmosphere, and purple shows regions with increased aerosols.

As seen in Figure 1, the results show a consensus that aerosol amounts were reduced, especially over southern and eastern Asia, for 2020. This led to increases in solar radiation reaching the surface in that region. However, we could not detect any associated impact on temperature or rainfall in that region or globally.

The results are publicly available through a climate model archive known as the Earth System Grid . The climate research community will benefit from these experiments for many years. We recommend that more analyses on regional scales and analysis of extreme weather and air quality would be useful to further understand the impact of emission reductions due to COVID-19 on the climate.

How have emissions changed due to the pandemic?

As the pandemic rapidly spread and affected more and more countries it became clear that it had the potential to disrupt daily life on a global scale and change the way we use energy, burn fuel and emit pollutants into the atmosphere. Several studies analysed activity data – such as that available from Apple or Google – to estimate how this might change greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions. Le Quéré et al. (2020) estimated a drop in carbon dioxide emissions of about 17% during April 2020, and projected this would lead to a decrease of about 7% for the year as a whole. Forster et al. (2020) applied similar analysis to emissions of other greenhouse gases – such as methane, and precursors of ozone and aerosols such as sulphates and nitrogen oxides. All of these saw a peak reduction during April with expected sustained reductions during the rest of 2020. Carbon Brief reported that in the UK, these reductions saw greenhouse gas emissions drop to 51% below 1990 levels – equivalent to temporarily being halfway to meeting the UK’s net zero by 2050 target.

What was the effect of the change in emissions?

How these emissions affect the content of the atmosphere varies for each different gas or aerosol. We know that aerosols only stay in the air for a few days and so the amounts of them can change very quickly. Many places in the world saw big improvements in air quality and visibility due to the reduction in aerosols.

Gases like carbon dioxide have a very long lifetime in the atmosphere and so changes to emissions only affect them very slowly. While a decrease in emissions of 7% is unprecedented, it still means that 93% of our normal emissions went into the atmosphere and carbon dioxide levels continued to build up. A bit like filling a bathtub – we slowed the flow from the taps very slightly, but the water level continues to rise .

How did the climate respond?

Some experiments with the Canadian climate model, CanESM5, showed that the global climate response to emissions reductions like those observed in 2020 is likely to be small (Fyfe et al., 2021). But we know that different models can give different answers, so in our new study we wanted to use as many models as we could to check the robustness of the conclusions. Assuming that the emissions reductions would last for two years before beginning to recover back to previous levels, the models were used to simulate the climate of the five year period from 2020-2024.

Figure 1 shows how the reduced emissions in 2020 led to reduced aerosol amounts, especially over southern and eastern Asia. This also led to small increases in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface in that region, as seen in Figure 2, but this was not enough to change the climate. Both for that region, and globally, the annual temperature and rainfall did not change significantly.

Can we build-back “greener”?

To try to understand the effect all of these changes would have on our climate, Forster et al. (2020) used a simplified climate model to look at the conflicting effects. Despite initially very little effect on climate, on longer timescales over many years decreased carbon dioxide emissions will cause a cooling effect. The message being that if we can continue to reduce our emissions then we still have a chance of limiting the level of future warming and the severity of future climate change impacts.

With vaccination programmes bringing the prospect of brighter horizons, now is a good time to consider how we can plan our economic recovery and development in a way which ensures a sustainable future and transition to low-carbon. The goals of the Paris Agreement commit countries to try to limit warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. Reducing emissions to net zero from about the middle of the century is required to limit global warming; this means no longer adding any greenhouse gases to the atmosphere from that date. Many countries have pledged to achieve these net zero goals, but doing so requires far reaching transformation across all parts of society. This includes long-term planning for infrastructure from power generation, to domestic heating, to electric vehicle infrastructure. How we achieve this is up to society, but scientific understanding of the climate system helps with planning possible solutions. The impact of the Covid restrictions has provided a unique opportunity for society to pursue ways forward which could bring permanent changes towards a climate-resilient future.

Forster, P. M., Forster, H. I., Evans, M. J., Gidden, M. J., Jones, C. D., Keller, C. A., et al. (2020). Current and future global climate impacts resulting from COVID-19. Nat. Clim. Chang. doi: 10.1038/s41558-020-0883-0 .

Fyfe, J.C., Kharin, V.V., Swart, N., Flato, G.M., Sigmond, M., Gillett, N. P. (2021). Quantifying the Influence of Short-term Emission Reductions on Climate. Sci. Adv. in press.

Jones, C. D., Hickman, J. E., Rumbold, S. T., Walton, J., Lamboll, R. D., Skeie, R. B., et al. (2021). The Climate Response to Emissions Reductions due to COVID‐19: Initial Results from CovidMIP. Geophys. Res. Lett. doi: 10.1029/2020GL091883 .

Lamboll, R. D., Jones, C. D., Skeie, R. B., Fiedler, S., Samset, B. H., Gillett, N. P., Rogelj, J., and Forster, P. M. (2020). Modifying emission scenario projections to account for the effects of COVID-19: protocol for Covid-MIP. Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss. doi: 10.5194/gmd-2020-373 .

Le Quéré, C., Jackson, R. B., Jones, M. W., Smith, A. J. P., Abernethy, S., Andrew, R. M., et al. (2020). Temporary reduction in daily global CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 forced confinement. Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 647–653. doi: 10.1038/s41558-020-0797-x .

You might also like

Help us improve our website

Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field.

For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click here .

Loading metrics

Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

The good, the bad and the ugly of lockdowns during Covid-19

Contributed equally to this work with: Talita Greyling, Stephanie Rossouw, Tamanna Adhikari

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Economics, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation School of Economics, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

• Talita Greyling, 
• Stephanie Rossouw, 
• Tamanna Adhikari

• Published: January 22, 2021
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

Amidst the rapid global spread of Covid-19, many governments enforced country-wide lockdowns, with likely severe well-being consequences. In this regard, South Africa is an extreme case suffering from low levels of well-being, but at the same time enforcing very strict lockdown regulations. In this study, we analyse the causal effect of a lockdown and consequently, the determinants of happiness during the aforementioned. A difference-in-difference approach is used to make causal inferences on the lockdown effect on happiness, and an OLS estimation investigates the determinants of happiness after lockdown. The results show that the lockdown had a significant and negative impact on happiness. In analysing the determinants of happiness after lockdown, we found that stay-at-home orders have positively impacted happiness during this period. On the other hand, other lockdown regulations such as a ban on alcohol sales, a fear of becoming unemployed and a greater reliance on social media have negative effects, culminating in a net loss in happiness. Interestingly, Covid-19, proxied by new deaths per day, had an inverted U-shape relationship with happiness. Seemingly people were, at the onset of Covid-19 positive and optimistic about the low fatality rates and the high recovery rates. However, as the pandemic progressed, they became more concerned, and this relationship changed and became negative, with peoples' happiness decreasing as the number of new deaths increased.

Citation: Greyling T, Rossouw S, Adhikari T (2021) The good, the bad and the ugly of lockdowns during Covid-19. PLoS ONE 16(1): e0245546. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546

Editor: Francesco Di Gennaro, National Institute for Infectious Diseases Lazzaro Spallanzani-IRCCS, ITALY

Received: July 29, 2020; Accepted: December 30, 2020; Published: January 22, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Greyling et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: The following authors received salaries from their institutions, whom were also the funders of the research. 1. Prof T Greyling: University of Johannesburg via the University Research Fund. 2. Dr Stephanie Rossouw: Auckland University of Technology via the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

1. Introduction

In an attempt to curb the spread of Covid-19 and minimise the loss of life, governments around the world have imposed their version of mandatory self-isolation through implementing lockdown regulations. Unfortunately, restricting people's mobility and depriving them of what matters most might intensify the negative effect on happiness levels.

In an extreme country case, this might be amplified. In this study, we treat an extreme country as a country with very strict lockdown regulations, with likely high infection rates, amidst low levels of well-being. We define well-being as those aspects of life that society collectively agrees are important for a person's quality of life, happiness and welfare. One of the dimensions of well-being, material (income) hinges on a bleak economic outlook.

To this end, our primary aim in this study is to use the Gross National Happiness Index (GNH), a real-time measure of well-being, derived from Big Data, to investigate if lockdown regulations in itself caused a decrease in happiness. Secondly, we determine which factors matter most (factors significantly influencing happiness) to happiness under these changed circumstances. We accomplish these aims by using two econometric techniques: difference-in-difference (DiD) and ordinary least squares (OLS).

Against this backdrop, the current study makes several contributions to the literature:

• Determining whether lockdown regulations cause a decline in happiness –in an extreme country case scenario.
• Investigating specifically the determinants of happiness during a lockdown, whereas other studies have focused on mental well-being and related matters (see section 2).
• Being one of the few studies (see also Rossouw, Greyling and Adhikari; Greyling, Rossouw and Adhikari [ 1 , 2 ]) that investigates the effect of lockdown on happiness making use of real-time Big Data . Other studies such as Hamermesh [ 3 ] and Brodeur et al. [ 4 ] also use Big Data, though limited to Google Trends (see section 2).

These results give policymakers the necessary information to take action in increasing the happiness of the nation and set the scene for increased economic, social and political well-being. It also allows them to reflect on happiness outcomes due to their policy actions. An additional benefit of the current study is that policymakers do not need to wait for extended periods to see the consequences of their policies, as we are making use of real-time data, with immediate information. Usually, policymakers can only evaluate their own decision making, with significant time-lags, prolonging the implementation of corrective actions.

Our results indicate lockdown itself causes a decrease in happiness. Furthermore, in an extreme country case (a country under stringent lockdown regulations coupled with low levels of well-being) what matters most to happiness under lockdown is the factors directly linked to the regulations that were implemented. These factors can be classified as (i) social capital issues; lack of access to alcohol (and tobacco), increased social media usage, and more time to spend at home, of which all are negatively related to happiness except the stay-at-home factor, and (ii) economic issues; concerns over jobs and the threat of retrenchments, which are negatively related to happiness. The finding on the stay-at-home order is interesting as even though lockdown itself caused a decline in happiness, it seems that people adjust and over time begin to appreciate the benefits of staying at home.

Noteworthy is that Covid-19, proxied by new deaths per day, had an inverted U-shape relationship to happiness. Seemingly people were, at the onset of Covid-19, positive and optimistic as the fatality rate was relatively low and recovery rates high. However, as the pandemic progressed, they became more concerned, and this relationship changed and became negative, with peoples' happiness decreasing as the number of new Covid-19 deaths increased.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. The next section contains a brief background on South Africa and briefly discusses literature about happiness and studies conducted on the impacts of pandemics and consequently lockdown regulations. Section 3 describes the data, the selected variables and outlines the methodology used. The results follow in section 4, while the paper concludes in section 5.

2. Background and literature review

2.1 south africa.

In this study, we focus on South Africa because it presents us with a unique case to investigate the effect of a lockdown on happiness when levels of well-being are already low. Health and income, two dimensions of well-being, was significantly affected, although in opposite directions. Health was positively affected by the lockdown since it limited the spread of Covid-19. At the stage of writing the paper (3 June 2020), the number of new Covid-19 cases were nearly 120,000 (John Hopkins University [ 5 ]). On the other hand, the economic outlook of the country, and therefore peoples' incomes, was negatively affected. This opposite effect has led to significant debates on the value of the implementation of the lockdown.

Furthermore, South Africa implemented one of the most stringent lockdown regulations (comparable to the Philippines and Jordan), which exacerbated the costs to well-being and the economy while already experiencing a severe economic downturn. Therefore, South Africa is an example of an extreme country case which unfortunately amplifies the effects of the difficult choices made by policymakers. Therefore, we take advantage of this unique country case and determine how stringent lockdown regulations impact happiness during a one in 100-year event.

In South Africa, there are five levels of differing lockdown regulations, with alert level 5 being the most stringent and alert level 1 the most relaxed. The idea behind these levels is to curb the spread of Covid-19 and give time to South Africa's health system to prepare itself. Additionally, as they move down in levels, South Africans receive increasingly more of their previous liberties back. During level 5, which was announced 23 March 2020 and implemented on 27 March 2020, South Africans were only allowed to leave their homes to purchase or produce essential goods. All South Africans were instructed to work from home, there was no travel allowed, the sale of alcohol and tobacco were banned, people were not allowed to exercise outside their homes, and the police and defence force ensured compliance to the restrictions. South Africa moved to level 4 lockdown on 01 May 2020. With this move, they received back the ability to exercise outside from 6 am—9 am, purchase more than just essential goods, including food deliveries as long as it was within curfew.

Interestingly, the sale of alcohol and tobacco was still banned. On 01 June they moved to level 3, allowing restricted sales of alcohol (Mondays to Thursdays) and the re-opening of certain businesses. However, the services industry, especially beauty and tourism, remained closed. At the time of writing this paper, South Africa was still under level 3 lockdown.

Whereas everybody understands that the Covid-19 infections curve needs to be flattened, there are grave concerns that these stringent lockdown regulations will also flatline South Africa's well-being and economy. Before the Covid-19 lockdown, South Africa's average happiness levels were 6.32 compared to an average of 7.23 and 7.16 in Australia and New Zealand, respectively (Greyling et al. [ 2 ]). Furthermore, South Africa had a 29 per cent unemployment rate, and the gross domestic product (GDP) has been estimated to shrink by 7 per cent in 2020 (Bureau of Economic Analysis [ 6 ]). According to the South African Reserve Bank [ 7 ], an additional 3 to 7 million people can potentially become unemployed as a direct consequence of the pandemic, thereby increasing unemployment rates to approximately 50 per cent. The country's sovereign credit rating was downgraded to junk status in March 2020, which impacted on political stability, the level of the national debt and debt interest payments. Add to this already grim situation, the fact that consumption of South Africans has been declining in 2020, with a significant decrease seen after lockdown, then one can very easily see how the well-being and happiness levels in South Africa can plummet.

2.2 Happiness

Why should we care whether people's happiness is adversely impacted by not only a global pandemic but also by the response from the government? The studies of Helliwell, Layard, Stiglitz et al., Veenhoven, Diener and Seligman and others [ 8 – 12 ], have shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that if policymakers want to maximise the quality of life of their citizens, they need to consider subjective measures of well-being. Piekalkiewicz [ 13 ] states that happiness may act as a determinant of economic outcomes: it increases productivity, predicts one's future income and affects labour market performance. By measuring happiness, individuals themselves reveal their preference and assigned priority to various domains, which cannot be identified by a measure such as GDP. As was pointed out by Layard [ 9 ], while economists use exactly the right framework for thinking about public policy, the accounts we use of what makes people happy are wrong. In layman's terms, we say that utility increases with the opportunities for voluntary exchange. However, Layard [ 14 ] argues that this overlooks the significance of involuntary interactions between people. Policymakers should formulate policy to maximise happiness or well-being, as is the main aim of many constitutions. This can be achieved by directing economic, social, political and environmental policy to maximise well-being while acknowledging that people's norms, aspirations, feelings and emotions are important. Thereby underscoring that understanding and measuring happiness should be an integral part of the efforts to maximise the quality of life.

On the other hand, if people's happiness is negatively affected, such as it was in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the implementation of lockdown regulations, there are far-reaching consequences.

These consequences are as follows:

• Social capital: unhappier people display less altruistic behaviour in the long run (Dunn et al. [ 15 ]). They are also less active, less creative, poor problem solvers, less social, and display more anti-social behaviour (Lyubomirsky et al. [ 16 ]). If unhappier people display more anti-social behaviour, South Africa could see an increase in behaviour such as unrests, violent strikes and perhaps higher crime rates.
• Health care: unhappier people are less physically healthy and die sooner (Lyubomirsky et al. [ 16 ]). Additionally, unhappy people engage in riskier behaviour such as smoking and drinking, thereby placing unnecessary pressure on national health systems.
• Economic: unhappy workers are typically less productive, in particular in jobs that require sociability and problem solving (Bryson et al. [ 17 ]). If an economy can raise the rate of growth of productivity, by ensuring their workers are happier, then the trend growth of national output can pick up.

2.3 Literature on the determinants of happiness during a lockdown

Having established that policymakers should strive to maximise the happiness of their people, it is necessary to know what determines happiness. Previous studies have investigated, at a macro-level, what influences happiness and found that economic growth, unemployment and inflation play a significant role (Stevenson and Wolfers, Perović, Sacks et al. [ 18 – 20 ]). However, these studies were conducted during 'normal' periods and not under such conditions that are currently plaguing the world. The current study will have the opportunity to investigate this exact question, namely what determines happiness during a lockdown driven by a global health pandemic.

Naturally, the number of studies being conducted to examine the effect of Covid-19 is growing exponentially. This increasing interest in the effect of a global pandemic as well as the policies implemented by governments on peoples' well-being, come on the back of relatively few studies conducted during prior pandemics such as SARS and the H1N1. When SARS hit in 2002 and then again when H1N1 hit in 2009, scholars were only truly starting to understand that for governments to formulate policies to increase well-being, you needed to measure well-being. Of the current studies being conducted on the effect of Covid-19 or lockdown regulations on all affected domains, not many studies are in a position to use real-time Big Data, such as we do.

In layman's terms, Big Data is a phrase used to describe a massive volume of both structured (for example stock information) and unstructured data (for example tweets) generated through information and communication technologies such as the Internet (Rossouw and Greyling [ 1 ]). At the time of writing this paper, the following studies were closest aligned with our study and focused on:

• nationwide lockdown on institutional trust, attitudes to government, health and well-being, using survey data collected at two points in time (December 2019 and April 2020) (1003 respondents) (Sibley et al. [ 21 ]). Their preliminary results showed a small increase in people's sense of community and trust. However, they also found an increase in anxiety/depression post-lockdown and hinted at longer-term challenges to mental health.
• the happiness of married and single people while in government-imposed lockdown by running simulations to formulate predictions, using Google Trends data (Hamermesh [ 3 ]). Not surprisingly, married people were more satisfied with life than single people.
• the timing of decision-making by politicians to release lockdown based on a comparison of economic benefits with the social and psychological benefits versus the cost, increase in deaths if policymakers released lockdown too early (Layard et al. [ 22 ])
• the stages of GNH using a Markov switching model in New Zealand (Rossouw et al. [ 23 ]). They found that happiness was at a lower level and the unhappy state lasted longer than was expected. Furthermore, they found that the factors important for New Zealand's happiness post-Covid-19 were related to international travel, employment and mobility.
• exploring Covid-19 related determinants of life dissatisfaction and feelings of anxiety in a cross-country study using survey data collected between 23 March and 30 April (de Pedraza et al. [ 24 ]). They found that persons with poorer general health, without employment, living without a partner, not exercising daily and those actively seeking out loneliness report higher dissatisfaction and higher anxiety. Additionally, they found that the effect of Covid-19 on dissatisfaction and anxiety levels off with a higher number of cases.

2.4 Literature on the causal effect of a lockdown

To the knowledge of the authors, there are only two papers that investigated the causal effect between lockdowns and population well-being. Brodeur et al. [ 4 ] investigated the changes in well-being (and mental health) in the United States and Europe after a lockdown was implemented, using Google Trends data. They found an increase in searches for loneliness, worry and sadness, which indicated a negative effect on mental health. Greyling et al. [ 2 ] conducted a cross-country study investigating the effect of lockdown on happiness. They found that lockdown caused a negative effect on happiness, notwithstanding the different characteristics of the countries (South Africa, New Zealand and Australia), the duration and the type of lockdown regulations. When they compared the effect size of the lockdown regulations, they found that South Africa, with the most stringent lockdown regulations incurred the greatest happiness costs.

Brodeur et al. [ 4 ] study analysed data from one Big Data source, Google Trends and collected data for a short period between only 01 January 2019 and 10 April 2020 in countries that had introduced a full lockdown by the end of this period. Greyling et al. [ 2 ] study used both Google Trends and the GNH index but did not investigate the determinants of happiness after lockdown for an extreme country case.

In summary, taking all of the above into consideration, there is not one study which determines causality between lockdown and happiness and analyses the determinants of happiness in an extreme country case using real-time , Big Data . Therefore, our study is the first of its kind.

3. Data and methodology

To estimate the causal effects of a lockdown on happiness, we use a Difference-in-Difference (DiD) approach (see section 3.3.1). The technique compares happiness (dependent variable), before and after the treatment (the lockdown) to a counterfactual time period in the year before. For the control period, we select the same time period, with the same number of days in 2019, corresponding to the number of days in 2020, thus 152 days in each year (01 January 2020 to 03 June 2020, excluding 29 February 2020). Our results should thus be interpreted as the average impact of the lockdown on happiness, comparing pre and post-lockdown in 2020 to the same time period in 2019, which we assume had normal levels of Gross National Happiness (see a discussion on the GNH in section 3.2.1). In this manner, we also account for seasonal trends in happiness.

In the analyses, we make use of daily data for South Africa. As high-frequency data available at almost real-time, is scarce, we make use of novel Big Data methodologies to harvest data. Additionally, we use the Oxford Stringency dataset that was released in May 2020, which includes data related to lockdown regulations, such as time-series data on the stay-at-home index, Covid-19 cases and Covid-19 deaths (Hale et al., Roser et al. [ 25 , 26 ]).

3.2 Selection of variables

The selection of the variables included in our estimations is based on the reviewed literature, the contents of tweets related to the lockdown and data availability.

3.2.1 Gross National Happiness Index–the dependent variable.

To measure happiness (the dependent variable), we make use of the Gross National Happiness Index (GNH), which was launched in April 2019 (Greyling, Rossouw and Afstereo [ 27 ]). This project measures the happiness (mood) of a country's citizens during different economic, social and political events.

Since February 2020, the researchers extended the project that initially analysed the sentiment of tweets, to incorporate the analysis of the emotions underpinning tweets. The team did this to determine which emotions are most prominent on specific days or events.

To construct the GNH index, the researchers use Big Data methods and extract tweets from the voluntary information-sharing social media platform Twitter. Big Data, such as Twitter, provides real-time information for policymakers to assist them when facing short-term deadlines with imperfect information. Big Data also allows governments to 'listen' and capture those variables which their citizens deem to be important for their well-being, rather than relying on pre-defined economic utility theories. Big Data offers governments the opportunity to observe people's behaviour and not just their opinions. This approach of revealed preferences unveils a reflexive picture of society because it allows the main concerns of citizens (and the priority ranking of those concerns) to emerge spontaneously, and it complements as such the information captured by gross domestic product. Lastly, Big Data does not suffer from non-response bias (Callegaro and Yang [ 28 ]).

Greyling, Rossouw and Afstereo [ 27 ] apply sentiment analysis to a live Twitter-feed and label every tweet as having either a positive, neutral or negative sentiment. This sentiment classification is then applied to a sentiment-balance algorithm to derive a happiness score. The happiness scores range between 0 and 10, with five being neutral, thus neither happy nor unhappy.

All tweets per day are extracted, and a happiness score per hour is calculated. The index is available live on the GNH website (Greyling, Rossouw and Afstereo [ 27 ]). In South Africa, the average number of tweets extracted for 2020 is 68,524 per day. South Africa has approximately 11 million Twitter users, representing almost 18 per cent of the population (Omnicore [ 29 ]). Although the number of tweets is extensive and represents significant proportions of the populations of the countries, it is not representative. However, Twitter accommodates individuals, groups of individuals, organisations and media outlets, representing a kind of disaggregated sample, thus giving access to the moods of a vast blend of Twitter users, not found in survey data.

Furthermore, purely based on the vast numbers of the tweets, it seems that the GNH index gives a remarkably robust reflection of the evaluative mood of a nation. Also, we correlate the GNH index with 'depression' and 'anxiety', derived from the 'Global behaviors and perceptions at the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic data ' survey, for the period from 01 March 2020 (OFS [ 30 ]). We find it negative and statistically significant related, therefore, it seems that the GNH index derived from Big Data gives similar trends to survey data. (We would have appreciated the opportunity to correlate the GNH to a happiness measure–but a happiness measure, as such, was not included in the survey).

Considering the GNH index over time, we found that the index accurately reflects a nation's emotions, for example, when South Africa won the Rugby World Cup on 02 November 2019, the happiness index accurately depicted the joy experienced by South Africans ( Fig 1 ). The hourly happiness score was 7.9 at 13:00, the highest score ever measured, at the exact time that the final whistle was blown to announce the victory of the Springboks over England.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

Source: Authors' calculations using GNH dataset (Greyling et al. [ 27 ]).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.g001

Also, when the famous American basketball player, Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gigi, tragically passed away on 27 January 2020, the happiness index once again captured the negative mood of the nation, and the happiness score decreased to 5.8, significantly below the mean (see Fig 2 ). The result of the GNH mirrors the one determined by the Hedonometer, which recorded an average happiness score of 5.89 on the day of Bryant's death. The top three words that made this day sadder than the previous seven were 'crash', 'died' and 'rip'.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.g002

3.2.2 The selection of covariates included in estimations.

We found ourselves in uncharted territory, as there are limited studies estimating happiness functions during a lockdown (see Brodeur et al., Greyling et al., Rossouw et al. [ 2 , 4 , 23 ]). As a result, we considered these studies and the tweets to determine the factors to consider, which might influence happiness during a lockdown , as well as the most tweeted subjects. It was evident from the tweets that the main topics of discussion related to economic concerns, the prohibition of the sale of alcohol and tobacco, the stay-at-home orders and the Covid-19 pandemic itself.

To estimate our difference-in-difference model, we restricted our covariates to the lockdown variable, a year effect, the difference-in-difference estimator and controlled for new Covid-19 deaths, job searches and searches for alcohol. We were restricted in the number of covariates due to the limited observations and potentially encountering the issue of over-identification of the models. Therefore, we selected those variables which were available for both 2019 and 2020, and which were also trending subjects during the lockdown period. We were not able to add a stay-at-home variable which captures the lack of mobility, as the counterfactual time period is then not comparable to 2020.

Lockdown, our treatment variable, divides the sample into two distinct time periods: before the announcement of the lockdown, 23 March 2020 and thereafter. We make use of the date of the announcement of the lockdown rather than the date of the implementation, as this showed the severest effect on happiness (see Brodeur et al. [ 4 ]).

The Covid-19 pandemic and consequent spread of the virus is the reason for the lockdown. As such, we include the number of new daily Covid-19 deaths as well as its square. This will allow us to control for the likelihood of a U-shaped relationship between the number of Covid-19 deaths and happiness. Furthermore, there is likely a lagged effect on happiness due to Covid-19 deaths being reported in the media only the following day. Therefore, we lag these variables by one day. We derive the data from the Oxford Stringency data set (Hale et al. and Roser et al. [ 25 , 26 ]).

To measure jobs (a proxy for future job uncertainty) and the sale of alcohol and tobacco, we use the methodology as set out by Nuti et al. and Brodeur et al. [ 4 , 31 ] and use daily searches on Google Trends (see also Simionescu and Zimmermann [ 7 ]). We considered searches for both the alcohol and tobacco topic; however, the variables follow the same trends during the lockdown period and are highly correlated (r = 0.83). We are, furthermore, restricted in the number of covariates to include in the model and decided to include only 'alcohol' in the estimations. We justify this decision since the ban of alcohol affects a larger proportion of the population. It is estimated that 41 per cent of males and 17.1 per cent of females consume on average 9.3 litres of alcohol per capita annually whereas only 17.6 per cent smoke (Peltzer et al. and Reddy et al. [ 32 , 33 ]). However, as a robustness check, we also run all estimations using the searches for tobacco.

It should be noted that when we use Google Trends data, it is expressed as an index between 0 and 100 with 0 being the "least" interest and 100 being the "most" interest shown in the topic for the year. However, the series are not comparable across years as the underlying data is sourced from different search requests for each of the two years. To address this, we use a scaling procedure outlined in Brodeur et al. [ 4 ]. First, we generate "weekly" interest weights for each day by expressing the average weekly score that a particular daily score fell on, as a proportion of the average yearly score. Then, we multiply the daily scores with these weights to obtain weighted search trends. Finally, we normalise these weighted search trends to render us a score between 0 and 100, which is comparable across years.

Other topics that are trending are related to the 'stay-at-home' orders. The Oxford Stringency dataset includes a time series variable on the stay-at-home orders. It differs on a day to day basis according to its stringency. It is an ordinal variable plus binary of geographic scope. It takes the value 0 if there are no stay-at-home orders and 1 if the government recommends not leaving your house. Value 2 represents people not leaving their homes with the exceptions of daily exercise, grocery shopping, and 'essential' trips. Not leaving your home with minimal exceptions (e.g. allowed to leave only once a week, or only one person can leave at a time, etc.) takes the value 3 (Hale et al. [ 25 ]).

Furthermore, we include the number of tweets per day, as it forms part of the Twitter data extracted daily for South Africa (Greyling et al. [ 27 ]), which is a proxy for connectivity. It also gauges the opportunity cost of not being able to have face to face interactions, which seems to be negatively related to happiness (Chae and Wilson et al. [ 34 , 35 ]). Interestingly the number of tweets increased markedly during the lockdown period, from an average of 60,708 to 80,000 tweets per day. Table 1 provides descriptive statistics for the variables included in the estimations.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.t001

3.3 Methodology

3.3.1 difference-in-difference..

Where GNH it is the daily happiness for South Africa at time t . The treatment variable lockdown takes the value of 0 pre-announcement day (23 March) and one post-announcement of lockdown in both the year of the actual lockdown (2020) as well as the year before the lockdown (2019). Year is a dummy variable where 1 is the year 2020. We control for new deaths per million with a one-day lag as well as the quadratic effect of new deaths per million on GNH. Additionally, we control for the effect of job and alcohol searches. As a robustness test, we use the number of new Covid-19 cases instead of new Covid-19 deaths (see Table 4 in S1 Appendix ).

Our main coefficient of interest is the interaction between the lockdown and the year variable. If it is found to be significant, it provides evidence of a causal effect of the lockdown on the dependent variable, in the current year, notwithstanding the trend in 2019.

3.3.2 OLS regression.

Here, y t refers to the Gross National Happiness Index (GNH) for each day and X t is a vector of several relevant covariates to account for the changes in the happiness levels during the lockdown period. μ t is the error term.

Due to the various factors that affect happiness, some of our independent variables may be correlated with the error term, leading to endogeneity concerns. Depending on the direction of the correlation between the error term and the X-variable, the coefficient could be biased upwards or downwards. For instance, the coefficient on the indicator for jobs is likely biased upwards as it, in all likelihood, shows the effect of concerns about jobs as well as some other negative economic shock on happiness. In the absence of panel data or an appropriate instrument, it is difficult to ascertain causality to Eq ( 2 ). However, simply correlating the covariates and the error term we find all levels of correlation to be less than 0.3, although a very basic test, this still indicates that the likelihood that endogeneity might bias estimations is relatively small. A natural extension of the work, as better data becomes available with time, would be to address these concerns.

We cannot rule out the probability of autocorrelation and heterogeneity in our data, especially due to its time-series nature. We use robust standard errors to account for this. The choice of our controls, however, comes with a caveat. Seeing as we only have 81 daily observations using a larger battery of covariates would lead to problems arising due to overfitting of the model. This issue is considered in Green [ 36 ], who suggests a minimum of 50 observations for any regressions as well as an additional eight observations per additional term. As a robustness test, we included tobacco rather than alcohol products (see Table 5 in S1 Appendix ).

4. Results and analysis

4.1 difference-in-difference estimation.

Fig 3 tracks the dependent variable (GNH) over the time period before and after the date of the lockdown (23 March) in the year of the lockdown (2020) and the year preceding it. On the day of the announcement of the lockdown and for a few successive days, we see a sharp downwards departure from the 2019 trend, assumed to be normal.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.g003

Table 2 provides the results for the difference-in-difference specification, which helps us to make causal inferences on the effect of the lockdown on the GNH. At the outset, we notice a negative and significant effect of the 'year' variable (p<0.001), showing that on average the GNH was lower in 2020 than in 2019.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.t002

We control for trends in job searches (a proxy for job uncertainty) and alcohol searches (a proxy for increased interest in alcohol-related topics in the specification). Both variables show a negative association with GNH, implying if there are more searches for jobs or alcohol, reflecting a scarcity in these items, GNH decreases. The negative effect of alcohol is statistically significant at the 1% level (p<0.001). We also control for lagged new Covid-19 related deaths and lagged new Covid-19 related deaths squared, both are significant (p<0.001). Interesting is the finding of the significant inverted U-shaped relationship between new Covid-19 deaths and happiness ( Fig 4 ). In the earlier stages of the pandemic, with very few new Covid-19 deaths, it appears that people were positive and optimistic as the fatality rates were very low and the recovery rates very high. However, as time progressed, the higher fatality rates turned the relationship around so that the number of new Covid-19 cases were negatively related to happiness.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.g004

To determine if the decrease in GNH was due to the lockdown (the treatment) specifically and not just due to the year trend, we must consider the estimated coefficient of the interaction variable 'lockdown and year'. We report a negative and statistically significant coefficient (p-value 0.064) on the interaction variable, indicating that 'lockdown' caused, on average a decrease in GNH of 0.101 points when compared to its mean values for average 2019 values, controlling for the general trend in the two years. Thus, we can conclude that the lockdown caused a decline in GNH in 2020 compared to 2019. The decline of 0.101 may seem small at first but given the low general levels of happiness in South Africa compared to other countries (Greyling et al. [ 27 ]) the reduction is substantial.

4.2 Regression analysis

To address the second research question, namely, to determine the factors that are related to happiness after the lockdown was implemented, we consider the results of Table 3 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.t003

Table 3 shows that job searches (p-value 0.09), searches for alcohol (p-value<0.001) and the number of tweets is negatively related to happiness. In contrast, the stay-at-home index is positively related to happiness (p-value<0.001). The squared relationship between new Covid-19 deaths and happiness is negative and statistically significant (p-value<0.001), indicating that this relationship changed over time as was highlighted in section 4.1. Suppose we consider the relatively low mortality rate (0.02 per cent of confirmed cases in the early stages) compared to countries such as the USA (3.9 per cent), the U.K. (15.4 per cent) and Spain (9.4 per cent). In that case, it could explain the initial positive relationship between the number of new Covid-19 deaths and happiness. Although as time passed and the death rate increased (currently, the mortality rate is at 1.5 per cent of confirmed cases), this relationship became negative. As a robustness test, we used the number of new Covid-19 cases and its square instead of the new Covid-19 deaths and found similar results (see Table 4 in S1 Appendix ).

As expected, job searches, a proxy for uncertainty about the future job market is negatively related to happiness (p-value<0.001). Analysing the tweets, we realised that this is a major concern, which is closely related to economic concerns. The economic performance of South Africa in the last year has been weak with high levels of unemployment (increase to 50 per cent), low growth rates (GDP is expected to contract with 7 per cent in 2020) and high debt to income ratios (government debt as a percentage of GDP– 80 per cent). In a recent survey conducted by Statistics South Africa on behavioural and health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic (Statistics South Africa [ 37 ]), it was found that 95 per cent of the respondents were very concerned about the economy. In contrast, only 60 per cent was concerned about the Covid-19 pandemic itself. This supports our current findings in that economic factors matter more to South Africans happiness levels than Covid-19 itself.

Alcohol-related searches are also found to be negatively related to happiness (p-value<0.001). Considering the close correlation between alcohol and tobacco products, we can assume that what holds for alcohol products, also holds for tobacco products. As a robustness test, we excluded the alcohol variable and included searches for tobacco variable and found very similar results (see Table 5 in S1 Appendix ). South Africa is one of the very few countries globally that have banned alcohol and tobacco sales during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is argued that these products contribute to the negative effects of the virus. The banning of these products had severe implications on different levels of society. Individuals see this as a major infringement of their human rights, negatively affecting their happiness. Furthermore, research done by Sommer et al. [ 38 ] proved that because of the presence of hordenine in beer, it significantly contributes to mood-elevation. In South Africa, which is well-known for its high per capita beer and alcohol consumption (Statistics South Africa [ 39 ]), also related to 'socialising', the ban on these products had a severe negative effect on happiness. Even in level 3, when the ban on alcohol sales was lifted, but still restricted, we found this negative relationship.

The restricted sale of alcohol and tobacco has indirect consequences for South Africans happiness via the economic impact since these industries are two of the largest industries in South Africa. They employ people across the whole supply chain from production to retail. Due to the ban on these industries, people can potentially lose their jobs. Lastly, the government sector forgoes all taxes on these products. This is against the backdrop of the recent downgrade of South Africa's debt rating to junk status in an already very uncertain fiscal environment. If all of these factors are aggregated, we can understand that the cumulative effect of the banning and restriction of sales of these products severely decreases the happiness levels. In Table 5 in S1 Appendix , we use tobacco searches instead of alcohol to estimate the determinants of happiness, which gives us results that are qualitatively similar to Table 3 .

The number of tweets is negatively related to happiness (p-value<0.001). Previous research has shown that increases in the use of social media are negatively related to happiness (Rolland et al., Chae and Wilson et al. [ 34 , 40 , 41 ]). Noteworthy is that the number of tweets during the lockdown period increased significantly from an average of 60,708 per day before the lockdown to 80,000 per day after the lockdown indicating that more people used social media during the lockdown period.

Interesting is the result of the stay-at-home orders being positively related to happiness (p-value<0.001). On analysing the contents of the tweets, we find the following. South Africans are wary of contracting Covid-19, and therefore, they abide by the stay-at-home orders and social distancing regulations to minimise the risk. That means that the stay-at-home orders in itself increase happiness; it is only once the other lockdown regulations are added that a total decrease in happiness levels are experienced.

Additional benefits revealed from analysing the tweets show that being at home provides a more peaceful and calmer environment compared to the rushed experience outside their homes. Also, people in the suburbs seem to be more convivial, with strangers greeting one another as people went for short walks around their neighbourhoods. In general, people have more time to spend with their loved ones. People earning salaries incur major savings, as there is less opportunity to spend money. People also save on commuting to and from workplaces and other destinations. One of the unexpected benefits of the stay-at-home orders is the much lower crime rates experienced in the country. Homes are constantly occupied, limiting the risk of residential robberies (-3.8 per cent). Other types of crimes such as murder (-72 per cent), rape (-87.2 per cent) and carjacking (-80.9 per cent) are much lower as well (Adapted from the speech of Police Minister Cele 2020 [ 42 ]).

In summary, what changed when the lockdown regulations to curb the spread of Covid-19 were implemented? It caused a significant decrease in happiness, and factors related to the lockdown regulations became relevant determinants of happiness.

5. Conclusions

In this paper, we used the Gross National Happiness Index (GNH), a real-time measure of well-being, derived from Big Data, to investigate whether lockdown regulations caused a decrease in happiness. Additionally, we determined which factors matter to happiness under these changed circumstances. We accomplished these aims by using two models: difference-in-difference and ordinary least squares.

We added to the current literature by determining causality between lockdown and happiness and analysing the determinants of happiness after a lockdown in an extreme country case using real-time , Big Data . Subsequently, this was the first study of its kind.

To determine if the decrease in GNH was due to the lockdown, specifically, we considered the estimated coefficient of the interaction variable 'lockdown and year'. We found a negative and statistically significant coefficient on the interaction variable, indicating that the lockdown caused a decline in GNH in 2020 compared to 2019.

As regards to the factors that are related to happiness after the lockdown was implemented, we found searches for alcohol (tobacco), the number of tweets and uncertainty about the future job market to be negatively related to happiness. In contrast, stay-at-home orders are positively related to happiness. Interesting is the negative and statistically significant squared relationship between new Covid-19 deaths and happiness, indicating that this relationship initially was positive but became negative over time.

Considering the results mentioned above, it ultimately means that if policymakers want to increase happiness levels and increase the probability to achieve the happiness levels of 2019, they must consider those factors that matter most to peoples' happiness. These factors include allowing creatures of habits some of their lost comforts by reinstating the sale of alcohol and tobacco. In saying that, we do advocate for responsible alcohol use by all South Africans and note that the significant effect of the ban on the sale of alcohol could be confounded by the restriction on social gatherings as well.

These results are important for countries in similar well-being situations, thus low levels of happiness, a diverse state of the economy and an increasing number of Covid-19 cases to evaluate what the effect of a strict lockdown is.

Additionally, policymakers should assure citizens that there is a credible plan to get the economy, which is currently in dire straits, back on track. Such an economic plan should stimulate growth, create job opportunities and increase employment rates, supply the necessary infrastructure and deal with curbing vast budget deficits and debt burdens. Hopefully, such policies will fuel the dying embers of a dying economy and increase well-being levels.

Lastly, it would be remiss of us not to note the limitations of the study. First, we were restricted in the number of covariates we could add to our difference-in-difference model due to the limited observations and therefore potentially overidentifying the models. Second, regarding the inverted U-shaped relationship between new Covid-19 deaths and happiness, we acknowledge that there might be confounding factors at play, initially seen as ‘positives' of the lockdown, but later turned into negatives. However, using alternative sets of covariates in the regression analyses, the inverted U-shape between new Covid-19 deaths and happiness remained. Therefore we trust that the revealed relationship is robust.

Supporting information

S1 appendix. robustness checks..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.s001

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.s002

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our colleagues Professor Emeritus John Knight from Oxford University and Dr Kelsey O'Connor from STATEC Luxembourg, for their generosity in providing feedback on the study.

• 1. Rossouw S. & Greyling T. (2020). Big Data and Happiness. Invited chapter for the Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics. Edited by Zimmermann Klaus F.
• 2. Greyling T, Rossouw S, Adhikari T. A tale of three countries: How did Covid-19 lockdown impact happiness? GLO Discussion Paper; 2020.
• 3. Hamermesh DS. Lockdowns, loneliness and life satisfaction. National Bureau of Economic Research; 2020 Apr 16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-020-09495-x pmid:32837455
• View Article
• Google Scholar
• 5. John Hopkins University. Coronavirus Resource Centre. (2020). Available at https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html Accessed 08 May 2020.
• 6. Bureau of Economic Research (2020). Available from https://www.ber.ac.za/BER%20Documents/Economic-Prospects/?doctypeid=1059 Accessed 08 June 2020
• 7. Simionescu M, Zimmermann KF. Big data and unemployment analysis. GLO Discussion Paper; 2017.
• 8. Helliwell JF. The Economics of Happiness. The National Bureau of Economic Research. 2015. Reporter 2:14–17.
• 10. Stevenson B, Wolfers J. Economic growth and subjective well-being: Reassessing the Easterlin paradox. National Bureau of Economic Research; 2008 Aug 29.
• PubMed/NCBI
• 14. Layard R. Happiness: Lessons from a new science. Penguin UK; 2011 Apr 7.
• 18. Statistics South Africa. Behavioural and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. 2020. Available at http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/Report-00-80-02/Report-00-80-022020.pdf Accessed 08 June 2020
• 20. Sacks DW, Stevenson B, Wolfers J. Subjective Well-Being, Income, Economic Development, and Growth. In Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics 2011: Development Challenges in a Post-crisis World 2013 Oct 11 (p. 283). World Bank Publications.
• 22. Layard R, Clark AE, De Neve JE, Krekel C, Fancourt D, Hey N, et al. When to Release the Lockdown? A Wellbeing Framework for Analysing Costs and Benefits. IZA Discussion Papers; 2020.
• 23. Rossouw S, Greyling T, Adhikari T, Morrison PS. Markov switching models for happiness during a pandemic: The New-Zealand experience. GLO Discussion Paper; 2020.
• 24. de Pedraza P, Guzi M, Tijdens K. Life Dissatisfaction and Anxiety in COVID-19 pandemic. GLO Discussion Paper; 2020.
• 25. Hale T, Petherick A, Phillips T, Webster S. Variation in government responses to COVID-19. Blavatnik School of Government Working Paper. 2020 May 27;31
• 26. Roser, M., Ritchie, H., Ortiz-Ospina, E. & Hasell, J. Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) 2020. Available at https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus Accessed on 18 June 2020.
• 27. Greyling T, Rossouw S, Afstereo. Gross National Happiness Index. The University of Johannesburg and Afstereo [producers]. 2019. Available at http://gnh.today . Accessed 08 May 2020.
• 29. Omnicore. Omnicore Agency. Available at https://www.omnicoreagency.com/ Accessed on 26 February 2020.
• 30. OFS. Global Behaviors and Perceptions in the COVID-19 Pandemic. 2020. Available at https://osf.io/g7fn9/ Accessed on 08 May 2020.
• 37. Statistics South Africa. Beer is more popular than vegetables. 2017. http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=10269 Accessed 04 May 2020.
• 38. South African Reserve Bank (2020). Available from https://www.resbank.co.za/Research/Statistics/Pages/Statistics-Home.aspx 08 June 2020
• 42. Crime levels before South Africa's lockdown–and what they look like now. Business Tech. 2020 April 23. Available from https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/391877/crime-levels-before-south-africas-lockdown-and-what-they-look-like-now/

• Newsletters

Site search

• Israel-Hamas war
• 2024 election
• Solar eclipse
• Supreme Court
• All explainers
• Future Perfect

Filed under:

Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

Artists, novelists, critics, and essayists are writing the first draft of history.

Share this story

• Share this on Facebook
• Share this on Twitter
• Share this on Reddit
• Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

The world is grappling with an invisible, deadly enemy, trying to understand how to live with the threat posed by a virus . For some writers, the only way forward is to put pen to paper, trying to conceptualize and document what it feels like to continue living as countries are under lockdown and regular life seems to have ground to a halt.

So as the coronavirus pandemic has stretched around the world, it’s sparked a crop of diary entries and essays that describe how life has changed. Novelists, critics, artists, and journalists have put words to the feelings many are experiencing. The result is a first draft of how we’ll someday remember this time, filled with uncertainty and pain and fear as well as small moments of hope and humanity.

At the New York Review of Books, Ali Bhutto writes that in Karachi, Pakistan, the government-imposed curfew due to the virus is “eerily reminiscent of past military clampdowns”:

Beneath the quiet calm lies a sense that society has been unhinged and that the usual rules no longer apply. Small groups of pedestrians look on from the shadows, like an audience watching a spectacle slowly unfolding. People pause on street corners and in the shade of trees, under the watchful gaze of the paramilitary forces and the police.

His essay concludes with the sobering note that “in the minds of many, Covid-19 is just another life-threatening hazard in a city that stumbles from one crisis to another.”

Writing from Chattanooga, novelist Jamie Quatro documents the mixed ways her neighbors have been responding to the threat, and the frustration of conflicting direction, or no direction at all, from local, state, and federal leaders:

Whiplash, trying to keep up with who’s ordering what. We’re already experiencing enough chaos without this back-and-forth. Why didn’t the federal government issue a nationwide shelter-in-place at the get-go, the way other countries did? What happens when one state’s shelter-in-place ends, while others continue? Do states still under quarantine close their borders? We are still one nation, not fifty individual countries. Right?

Award-winning photojournalist Alessio Mamo, quarantined with his partner Marta in Sicily after she tested positive for the virus, accompanies his photographs in the Guardian of their confinement with a reflection on being confined :

The doctors asked me to take a second test, but again I tested negative. Perhaps I’m immune? The days dragged on in my apartment, in black and white, like my photos. Sometimes we tried to smile, imagining that I was asymptomatic, because I was the virus. Our smiles seemed to bring good news. My mother left hospital, but I won’t be able to see her for weeks. Marta started breathing well again, and so did I. I would have liked to photograph my country in the midst of this emergency, the battles that the doctors wage on the frontline, the hospitals pushed to their limits, Italy on its knees fighting an invisible enemy. That enemy, a day in March, knocked on my door instead.

In the New York Times Magazine, deputy editor Jessica Lustig writes with devastating clarity about her family’s life in Brooklyn while her husband battled the virus, weeks before most people began taking the threat seriously:

At the door of the clinic, we stand looking out at two older women chatting outside the doorway, oblivious. Do I wave them away? Call out that they should get far away, go home, wash their hands, stay inside? Instead we just stand there, awkwardly, until they move on. Only then do we step outside to begin the long three-block walk home. I point out the early magnolia, the forsythia. T says he is cold. The untrimmed hairs on his neck, under his beard, are white. The few people walking past us on the sidewalk don’t know that we are visitors from the future. A vision, a premonition, a walking visitation. This will be them: Either T, in the mask, or — if they’re lucky — me, tending to him.

Essayist Leslie Jamison writes in the New York Review of Books about being shut away alone in her New York City apartment with her 2-year-old daughter since she became sick:

The virus. Its sinewy, intimate name. What does it feel like in my body today? Shivering under blankets. A hot itch behind the eyes. Three sweatshirts in the middle of the day. My daughter trying to pull another blanket over my body with her tiny arms. An ache in the muscles that somehow makes it hard to lie still. This loss of taste has become a kind of sensory quarantine. It’s as if the quarantine keeps inching closer and closer to my insides. First I lost the touch of other bodies; then I lost the air; now I’ve lost the taste of bananas. Nothing about any of these losses is particularly unique. I’ve made a schedule so I won’t go insane with the toddler. Five days ago, I wrote Walk/Adventure! on it, next to a cut-out illustration of a tiger—as if we’d see tigers on our walks. It was good to keep possibility alive.

At Literary Hub, novelist Heidi Pitlor writes about the elastic nature of time during her family’s quarantine in Massachusetts:

During a shutdown, the things that mark our days—commuting to work, sending our kids to school, having a drink with friends—vanish and time takes on a flat, seamless quality. Without some self-imposed structure, it’s easy to feel a little untethered. A friend recently posted on Facebook: “For those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.” ... Giving shape to time is especially important now, when the future is so shapeless. We do not know whether the virus will continue to rage for weeks or months or, lord help us, on and off for years. We do not know when we will feel safe again. And so many of us, minus those who are gifted at compartmentalization or denial, remain largely captive to fear. We may stay this way if we do not create at least the illusion of movement in our lives, our long days spent with ourselves or partners or families.

Novelist Lauren Groff writes at the New York Review of Books about trying to escape the prison of her fears while sequestered at home in Gainesville, Florida:

Some people have imaginations sparked only by what they can see; I blame this blinkered empiricism for the parks overwhelmed with people, the bars, until a few nights ago, thickly thronged. My imagination is the opposite. I fear everything invisible to me. From the enclosure of my house, I am afraid of the suffering that isn’t present before me, the people running out of money and food or drowning in the fluid in their lungs, the deaths of health-care workers now growing ill while performing their duties. I fear the federal government, which the right wing has so—intentionally—weakened that not only is it insufficient to help its people, it is actively standing in help’s way. I fear we won’t sufficiently punish the right. I fear leaving the house and spreading the disease. I fear what this time of fear is doing to my children, their imaginations, and their souls.

At ArtForum , Berlin-based critic and writer Kristian Vistrup Madsen reflects on martinis, melancholia, and Finnish artist Jaakko Pallasvuo’s 2018 graphic novel Retreat , in which three young people exile themselves in the woods:

In melancholia, the shape of what is ending, and its temporality, is sprawling and incomprehensible. The ambivalence makes it hard to bear. The world of Retreat is rendered in lush pink and purple watercolors, which dissolve into wild and messy abstractions. In apocalypse, the divisions established in genesis bleed back out. My own Corona-retreat is similarly soft, color-field like, each day a blurred succession of quarantinis, YouTube–yoga, and televized press conferences. As restrictions mount, so does abstraction. For now, I’m still rooting for love to save the world.

At the Paris Review , Matt Levin writes about reading Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves during quarantine:

A retreat, a quarantine, a sickness—they simultaneously distort and clarify, curtail and expand. It is an ideal state in which to read literature with a reputation for difficulty and inaccessibility, those hermetic books shorn of the handholds of conventional plot or characterization or description. A novel like Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is perfect for the state of interiority induced by quarantine—a story of three men and three women, meeting after the death of a mutual friend, told entirely in the overlapping internal monologues of the six, interspersed only with sections of pure, achingly beautiful descriptions of the natural world, a day’s procession and recession of light and waves. The novel is, in my mind’s eye, a perfectly spherical object. It is translucent and shimmering and infinitely fragile, prone to shatter at the slightest disturbance. It is not a book that can be read in snatches on the subway—it demands total absorption. Though it revels in a stark emotional nakedness, the book remains aloof, remote in its own deep self-absorption.

In an essay for the Financial Times, novelist Arundhati Roy writes with anger about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anemic response to the threat, but also offers a glimmer of hope for the future:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

From Boston, Nora Caplan-Bricker writes in The Point about the strange contraction of space under quarantine, in which a friend in Beirut is as close as the one around the corner in the same city:

It’s a nice illusion—nice to feel like we’re in it together, even if my real world has shrunk to one person, my husband, who sits with his laptop in the other room. It’s nice in the same way as reading those essays that reframe social distancing as solidarity. “We must begin to see the negative space as clearly as the positive, to know what we don’t do is also brilliant and full of love,” the poet Anne Boyer wrote on March 10th, the day that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. If you squint, you could almost make sense of this quarantine as an effort to flatten, along with the curve, the distinctions we make between our bonds with others. Right now, I care for my neighbor in the same way I demonstrate love for my mother: in all instances, I stay away. And in moments this month, I have loved strangers with an intensity that is new to me. On March 14th, the Saturday night after the end of life as we knew it, I went out with my dog and found the street silent: no lines for restaurants, no children on bicycles, no couples strolling with little cups of ice cream. It had taken the combined will of thousands of people to deliver such a sudden and complete emptiness. I felt so grateful, and so bereft.

And on his own website, musician and artist David Byrne writes about rediscovering the value of working for collective good , saying that “what is happening now is an opportunity to learn how to change our behavior”:

In emergencies, citizens can suddenly cooperate and collaborate. Change can happen. We’re going to need to work together as the effects of climate change ramp up. In order for capitalism to survive in any form, we will have to be a little more socialist. Here is an opportunity for us to see things differently — to see that we really are all connected — and adjust our behavior accordingly. Are we willing to do this? Is this moment an opportunity to see how truly interdependent we all are? To live in a world that is different and better than the one we live in now? We might be too far down the road to test every asymptomatic person, but a change in our mindsets, in how we view our neighbors, could lay the groundwork for the collective action we’ll need to deal with other global crises. The time to see how connected we all are is now.

The portrait these writers paint of a world under quarantine is multifaceted. Our worlds have contracted to the confines of our homes, and yet in some ways we’re more connected than ever to one another. We feel fear and boredom, anger and gratitude, frustration and strange peace. Uncertainty drives us to find metaphors and images that will let us wrap our minds around what is happening.

Yet there’s no single “what” that is happening. Everyone is contending with the pandemic and its effects from different places and in different ways. Reading others’ experiences — even the most frightening ones — can help alleviate the loneliness and dread, a little, and remind us that what we’re going through is both unique and shared by all.

Will you support Vox today?

We believe that everyone deserves to understand the world that they live in. That kind of knowledge helps create better citizens, neighbors, friends, parents, and stewards of this planet. Producing deeply researched, explanatory journalism takes resources. You can support this mission by making a financial gift to Vox today. Will you join us?

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via

Next Up In Culture

Sign up for the newsletter today, explained.

Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day.

Thanks for signing up!

Check your inbox for a welcome email.

Oops. Something went wrong. Please enter a valid email and try again.

The very short Mayorkas impeachment trial, explained

Boeing’s problems were as bad as you thought

Is Israel a “settler-colonial” state? The debate, explained.

How did the cost of food delivery get so high?

Would you donate a kidney for $50,000?

What science is just starting to understand about periods

• Campus Principal’s Message
• Why Choose Us?
• Our Leadership Team
• Campus & Facilities
• International Schools Partnership
• Tenby Schools Heritage
• Safeguarding
• School Policies
• Academic Pathway
• Amazing Learning
• Academic Success
• Early Years
• Learning Support
• University Preparation
• A Typical Day at Tenby Schools
• School Calendar & Term Dates
• Co-Curricular Activities
• After School Clubs & Trips
• Student Leadership
• Making A Difference
• Parents’ Association
• Message From Admissions Team
• Admission Process
• Admissions Policy
• School Fees
• Open Days & School Visits
• Enquire Now
• Where Our Families Are From
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Social Media
• Newsletters
• Engage Portal

Student Essay 1 – Impact of Lockdown on Our Planet

During Tenby Schools Setia Eco Park Eco Week in May, we ran an essay competition for all students on the topic of “Impact of Lockdown on Our Planet”. The committee received plenty of amazing essays, but could only pick 3 best essays.

Here, we share with you one of the winning essay by our Year 9 student, Kyeongryn. Read the full essay below.

It has been two months since Malaysia started the Movement Control Order alongside many other countries that imposed lockdown. For the majority of people, the lockdown is an uncomfortable and suffocating experience, but the environment seems to say the opposite as it has started ‘breathing’ again. Despite several problems it brought, it is indisputable that the lockdown was an opportunity for the environment to transform in many positive ways.

During the lockdown, most of the industries across the globe stopped operating. As a result, the amount of greenhouse gas emitted by the world decreased substantially; the daily greenhouse gas emission even dropped by 17% in early April. [1] Naturally, air pollution reduced, and it brought a lot of unexpected yet pleasant news to the world. Last month in April, thanks to the mitigation of air pollution, the Himalayan mountain range became visible to citizens in India for the first time in a few decades. [2] NASA released a satellite picture of China in March 2020 that showed a dramatic decline of nitrogen dioxide level in China compared to that of 2019. Fei Liu, an air quality researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, even stated that “This is the first time I have seen such a dramatic drop-off over such a wide area for a specific event.” [3] Additionally, popular tourist destinations around the world, including Venice, experienced a noticeable enhancement in their air quality due to less traffic and minimum movement of residents and tourists. [4]

Lockdown did not just influence the air quality around the world. As a consequence of less pollution and restricted human activities, nature started refreshing itself in some places. Sea turtles were spotted in the Bay of Bengal, where they did not visit for a long time. Iconic animals of other cities were also sighted after the number of travellers dwindled. For example, a wild puma appeared in Santiago, Chile, and a coyote was seen in Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Considering that these animals usually never emerged in these places [Santiago, Golden Gate Bridge] when they were full of tourists, it is apparent that the lockdown has positively affected the environment by allowing animals to move freely in space that humans occupied. [5]

The current situation made many parts of the global society suffer, but also showed hope in areas, especially the environment. Looking at some parts of nature thriving without human presence, we as humans should look back on the impactful actions that we wielded without considering the consequences and strive to look for ways to minimise the effect of destruction that we caused to planet Earth. We have seen multiple occasions where the world came together to overcome a common obstacle that is hindering our future. Like our previous success, I hope that in the near future, humans will achieve both the cessation of COVID-19 and the protection of the Earth.

Reference :

[1] [1] Chris, M., Brady, D. & John, M. (2020). Global emissions plunged an unprecedented 17 percent during the coronavirus pandemic. | The Washington Post. [online] Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/05/19/greenhouse-emissions-coronavirus/

[2] Rob, P. (2020). People in India can see the Himalayas for the first time in ‘decades,’ as the lockdown eases air pollution. | CNN Travel. [online] Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/himalayas-visible-lockdown-india-scli-intl/index.html

[3] Earthobservatory.nasa.gov. (2020). Airborne Nitrogen Dioxide Plummets Over China. | NASA Earth Observatory. [online] Available at: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146362/airborne-nitrogen-dioxide-plummets-over-china

[4] Anagha, S. (2020). As Italy quarantines over coronavirus, misleading reports of swans and dolphins in Venice canals go viral. | The Hill. [online[ Available at: https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/488286-italys-coronavirus-lockdown-shows-what-nature

[5] Euronews.com. (2020). While you stay home, animals roam free in our towns and cities. | Living. [online] Available at: https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/04/25/while-you-stay-home-animals-roam-free-in-our-towns-and-cities

Ranked amongst top 3 girls’ boarding schools of India

Enquire Now

• Post author: ecole_admin
• Post category: Blog
• Post published: Apr 18, 2020
• Post last modified: Feb 2, 2021

Effects Of Lockdown On Environment 

As we know that the coronavirus cases are increasing rapidly. Not only India, but the whole world is going through this Coronavirus pandemic. Due to this situation, the government extended the lockdown for more days. Along with India, many countries around the world have implemented quarantine and lockdown to slow down the spread of the infectious coronavirus. Everything is halt due to this epidemic situation. Whether it is industry, companies, or schools in India , everything are temporarily shut down because of widespread coronavirus infection. It canceled the flights and other journeys. Some people lost their job while others are struggling to earn their daily meals amid the lockdown.

Most of the major conferences and events such as the Indian Premier League (IPL), World Athletics Indoor Championships, and Facebook’s annual conference are canceled because of this pandemic situation. Many countries have restricted the issuance of visas and tighten their borders. Nowadays, social distancing and work from home have become the new standard in everyone’s lives.

Apart from these things, there are several positive and negative effects of lockdown on the environment . This lockdown period is a difficult challenge for all, but it’s the only way to stay safe and prevent the widespread of Coronavirus. The World Health Organization suggested that if you want to stay safe, then stay at your home.

Here Are The Effects Of Lockdown On Environment:

1. air pollution dropped suddenly.

Due to the lockdown, air pollution suddenly dropped all over the world. This is one of the major positive effects on the environment because of the coronavirus outbreak . Because several industries are temporarily shut down, there is only an emergency vehicle on the road; that’s why the whole world is pollution-free. For today’s generation, this is the first time for them to see such a dramatic change in the environment.

The satellite shows a drop in polluting gases like nitrogen dioxide over the last few weeks. This harmful gas is mostly generated by power plants, car engines, and other industrial processes. It believed that air pollution causes many health problems, especially respiratory illnesses like asthma. The World Health Organization (WHO) said that every year 3 million peoples are died because of air pollution. So in some manner, lockdown is good for the environment.

2. Water Is Clean Once Again

This is another unexpected effect on the environment due to lockdown . Because of the coronavirus, the number of tourists reduced so that all the water of seas and rivers is cleaner than they have been in living memory. When the massive number of tourists visit the beaches, they pollute the seawater by spreading garbage, swimming, and motorboats. But over the last few weeks, all the journeys are canceled due to lockdown, and many economic activities stopped that cause water pollution. This amazed the peoples that how clear the water has become. The change in the water is amazing for marine life. While the Coronavirus pandemic is dangerous for humans on the other side, it becomes productive for animals.

3. Greenhouse Gas Emission

As the economic activities are halt so this also drives down the emission. While the whole world shut down the schools, factories, and shops, then the emission are expected to fall. This lockdown period lowers oil demand. The international energy agency said that this year global oil demand is expected to decline because the impact of coronavirus spreads all over the world. The coronavirus pandemic broadly affects the energy markets all over the world. The people are going through huge losses due to this lockdown this is the major effect of lockdown on environment . But lockdown is only the solution to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

4. Rising The Use Of Domestic Energy

In the whole world, more and more people are at their homes due to the lockdown. So in this situation, the use of domestic energy is increasing. This also becomes one of the major effect of lockdown on environment . Now many people are working from home, so the domestic energy consumption is anticipated to have increased rapidly. Due to the lockdown, all the family members are at home, and they also consume the lot of domestic energy. This will eventually save energy as the rise in domestic use is more than recompensed by the huge drop in educational and commercial building uses.

5. Economic Crisis

Economic Crisis is one of the major effect of lockdown on environment . Because of this coronavirus , all the essential works are halt. The schools, colleges, industries, and airlines all the things are temporarily stopped. All these things cause the huge economic loss in all over the world. Due to this lockdown, most of the people lost their jobs. People are not able to travel from one place to another. In every field, people are suffering from economic losses. This virus slows down all the economic activities, and the whole world is going through the serious crisis. According to the expert’s reports every day, a huge number of people infected from this virus all over the world. So the lockdown is only the solution to prevent its spread. If we do not follow this advice, then in the future, we have to face more than this situation.

Related posts:

• LOCKDOWN IN INDIA: 80 CITIES IN INDIA UNDER LOCKDOWN TILL 31st MARCH 2020
• How Parents And Students Can Deal With The Lockdown And Convert It To Their Benefit
• How to make your school environment-friendly
• Maintaining a positive environment in classrooms

This Post Has 4 Comments

The worldwide disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in numerous impacts on the environment and the climate. The considerable decline in planned travel has caused many regions to experience a large drop in air pollution.

Hi, here on the forum guys advised a cool Dating site, be sure to register – you will not REGRET it Love-Angels

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

You Might Also Like

Overseas education trends to witness in 2023

The importance of sports in school life | Ecole Globale

Color Psychology: How Color affects your child

Enquiry form.

Advertisement

Positive global environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown: a review

• Published: 23 July 2021
• Volume 87 , pages 4425–4437, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

• Hong Chuan Loh 1 ,
• Irene Looi 1 , 2 ,
• Alan Swee Hock Ch’ng 1 , 2 ,
• Khang Wen Goh 3 ,
• Long Chiau Ming 4 &
• Kean Hua Ang 5  

19k Accesses

18 Citations

7 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

Global environmental change is mainly due to human behaviours and is a major threat to sustainability. Despite all the health and economic consequences, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on environmental health warrants the scientific community’s attention. Thus, this article examined and narratively reviewed the impact of several drastic measures taken on the macro environment and holistic planetary health. We note that the amount of pollution in the air, water, soil, and noise showed a significant decline during the pandemic. Global air quality improved due to lower anthropogenic emissions of air pollutants and atmospheric particles. Water ecosystems also demonstrated signs of recuperation in many countries. Less commercial fishing internationally resulted in the restoration of some aquatic life. Additionally, significant reduction of solid and water waste led to less soil pollution. Some places experienced cleaner beaches and ocean water while wildlife sightings in urban areas across the world occurred more often. Lastly, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown also led to a worldwide decline in noise pollution. However, the beneficial environmental effects will not be permanent as the world gradually returns to its pre-pandemic status quo. Therefore, behavioural changes such as adopting a lifestyle that reduces carbon footprint are needed to make a positive impact on the environment. In addition, world leaders should consider the national policy changes necessary to ensure continuity of as many of the positive environmental impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown as possible. Those changes would also serve to lessen the likelihood of another zoonotic calamity.

Similar content being viewed by others

A mini-review: positive impact of COVID-19 on Arial health and ecology

Sidra Naseer, Zhenggui Wei, … Saira Naseer

“Long COVID” and Its Impact on The Environment: Emerging Concerns and Perspectives

Parul Rana, Shilpa Patial, … Pankaj Raizada

COVID-19 and environment: a poignant reminder of sustainability in the new normal

Prateek Srivastava, Shalini Dhyani, … Ambrina Sardar Khan

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is now considered one of the world’s greatest challenges and biggest catastrophes since World War II (Gautam, 2020b ). As of today, 12 July 2021, there are nearly 200 million people infected with the virus and over 4 million deaths worldwide. Unfortunately, these numbers are still on the rise.

While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage both the health and economy of nations around the world, we are also contending with one of the greatest crises in human history, i.e., global environmental change. The change is mainly due to human behaviours and is a major threat to over half of the world’s population. Unfortunately, the world’s poorest communities, those with the least responsibility for producing environmental decay, are the most affected (Fust, 2010 ). If the human population continues to contribute to climate change, rising global temperatures and more natural disasters will plague the world. We would likely encounter more flooding and more droughts with rising sea levels and higher temperatures (Huckelba & Van Lange, 2020 ). Climate scientists have estimated that the Arctic Ocean will be free of ice by the summer of 2050 (Screen & Deser, 2019 ). As the ice melts, ancient viruses and bacteria from the permafrost soils that are potentially harmful to human beings may be released (Tsangaras & Greenwood, 2018 ). This could cause more outbreaks of infectious diseases in addition to the diseases of zoonotic origin that we are already experiencing.

To date, there have been several studies regarding the environmental impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Helm et al. presented a comprehensive research agenda from the environmental and economics perspective with five sets of research questions including (1) the short-term effects, (2) the longer-term economic effects and some of their potential environmental effects, (3) deglobalisation, trade and environmental effects, (4) environmental aspects of intergenerational equity, the balance sheet approach, and natural capital, and (5) the permanent effects on behavioural shifts (Helm, 2020 ). Another article provided four underlying research clusters based on a systematic content analysis of the studies, namely (1) COVID-19 and environmental degradation, (2) COVID-19 and air pollution, (3) COVID-19 and climate or meteorological influences, and (4) COVID-19 and temperature (Shakil et al., 2020 ). Lopez-Feldman et al. provided an insight on air pollution exposure from the COVID-19 pandemic (López-Feldman et al., 2021 ). There was also a review that focused on the negative impact of the pandemic on socio-economic factors and the positive environmental impact on air and water quality (Saadat et al., 2020 ). Straka et al. discussed improved air quality during the pandemic in the United States (Straka et al., 2021 ). Another study which examined the effect of meteorological factors on COVID-19 health outcomes reported that high temperature and high humidity minimise the transmission of COVID-19 but when the temperature, wind speed, dew or frost point, precipitation, and surface pressure are low, the transmission is enhanced (Sarkodie & Owusu, 2020 ). In the literature on the subject that we reviewed, there was no comprehensive narrative summarizing the positive environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown globally.

Naturally, there has been a lot of research on COVID-19 and most of it has been focused rightly on the negative impact of the pandemic. Disease, death, and economic devastation certainly warrant such attention. However, even though the outbreak has adversely altered the everyday lives of millions of people around the world since its onset, there have also been some benefits. With a non-normative approach, this paper considers various unexpected positive aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on planetary health. Even if we will not continue “lockdowns” after the COVID-19 pandemic abates, the positive environmental impacts we witnessed during the pandemic show that it is still possible to make great and rapid positive change. This fact should persuade citizens and governments around the world who doubt that we can or should act in environmental and climate change matters that it is necessary, urgent and, above all, possible to effect change. For the sake of all life on earth, authorities everywhere must press for new policies that will address global environmental change including climate change, environmental degradation, and the looming threat of more zoonotic pandemics. The objective of this paper is to identify many of the positive environmental changes that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic and point to those as examples for policymakers and citizens around the world to show that it is still possible to make great and rapid positive change.

Materials and methods

In this paper, we discussed the positive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on four environmental domains: air, water, soil, and noise. The positive effects were defined as reduction of air pollutants; improved water quality and increases in aquatic life; reduction of solid waste, wastewater and sewage sludge; and decreases in noise pollution. We searched through two major citation databases, namely PubMed, and Google Scholar using the terms ‘COVID-19 pandemic’, ‘environment’, ‘air’, ‘water’, ‘soil’, ‘noise’, ‘aquatic life’, ‘land use’, ‘wildlife’, ‘zoonotic disease’ for articles dated between 1st January 2020 and 1st February 2021. We also used reverse-forward citation (hand searches) from the included studies to search for relevant studies. We limited our search to English language articles only.

Environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown

The outbreak of COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11th March 2020 (Mitra et al., 2020 ). Quarantine, isolation, and lockdown measures were implemented in much of the world as per public health epidemiology practices in order to mitigate human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 (Shah et al., 2020 ). The measures taken by countries to tackle this crisis have led to an enormous economic meltdown and disruptions in social behavioural patterns (Hart & Halden, 2020 ). However, this once-in-a-century phenomenon paradoxically resulted in some positive impacts on planetary health. By taking into account the impact of industry shutdowns, lockdowns, and travel bans, there were multiple environmental benefits from the COVID-19 outbreak, primarily due to less anthropogenic pollution.

Air quality and atmospheric particles

According to the WHO, 4.6 million people die annually from diseases and illnesses directly linked to unhealthy air quality (Cohen et al., 2017 ). Air pollution has been known to be associated with a major prevalence of respiratory diseases such as pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and others (Van Donkelaar et al., 2010 ). Air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ), and particulate matter 2.5 (PM 2.5 ) are present in our atmosphere in alarming amounts and data show more people are dying each year due to bad air quality. Before the pandemic, in the period between 2016 and 2018, nearly 10,000 additional premature deaths in the US were associated with the increase in PM 2.5 . For the year 2016, these deaths, apart from the tragedy they represent, also resulted in $89 billion in economic damages (Clay & Muller, 2019 ). The 2019 World Air Quality Report showed that South Korea was among 37 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development with the highest PM 2.5 level in the air. In China, 98% of the cities surpassed the targets established by WHO guidelines. Of the top 30 most polluted cities, 21 are located in India while five are located in Pakistan (IQAir, 2019 ).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many places across the globe implemented lockdown measures. The mobility index report based on Google tracking data from February to April 2020 across the region that includes Spain, Italy and France showed a reduction of up to 90% in mobility (Muhammad et al., 2020 ). There were travel restrictions for tourism, entertainment, and personal purposes. The restrictions caused many flights to be grounded resulting in a significant lessening of emissions since planes are known for their intensive use of fossil fuels. Industrial production decreased and there was a reduction in the use of vehicles, both of which lowered demand for oil and reduced extraction and refining activity. The world also saw a decline in coal consumption by power plants. While several studies found an increase in ozone levels during the pandemic (Grange et al., 2020 ; Huang et al., 2021 ; Lovrić et al., 2021 ), overall, the unprecedented circumstances of the pandemic lockdown brought about a major reduction in air pollution, resulting in positive effects concerning air quality worldwide (Lenzen et al., 2020 ).

Globally, atmospheric emissions were reduced by 0.6 Mt of PM 2.5 , and 5.1 Mt of SO 2 and NO 2 . It is noteworthy that in the 32-year history of intergovernmental climate policy, none of the attempts by any government or any international agreement has had such a drastic mitigation impact on air pollution (Lenzen et al., 2020 ). Data collected on the level of concentration of aerosol optical depth (AOD) by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer onboard National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) satellites indicated a massive reduction by 50% of AOD in the India region’s air quality. This is due to the substantial change in aerosol levels, the lowest in 20 years, because of COVID-19 lockdowns in India (Gautam, 2020b ). The pandemic also exerted a major downward effect on China’s energy consumption and air pollutant emissions (Wang & Su, 2020 ). During the quarantine in China, there was a significant reduction in NO 2 concentrations based on data collected by the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument onboard the Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite. The ozone monitoring instrument aboard the NASA Aura spacecraft also reported similar atmospheric changes. There was as much as 30% NO 2 emission reduction just in Central China (Dutheil et al., 2020 ). A similar trend was also observed with emissions of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) associated with the use of fossil fuels like coal and crude oils. The CO 2 emissions decreased by 18.7% (182 Mt CO 2 ) compared to the first quarter in 2019, including decreases of 12.2% (92 Mt CO 2 ) in the industrial sector, 61.9% (62 Mt CO 2 ) in transport, and 23.9% (28 Mt CO 2 ) in construction (Wang et al., 2020 ). Some data showed that there was a reduction of nearly 1 million tons of carbon emissions during the lockdown, which is equivalent to 6% of global emissions. The PM 2.5 index in China across 367 cities also showed a reduction of 18.9 μg/m 3 (Zambrano-Monserrate et al., 2020 ). In Turkey, the PM 2.5 index was reduced by 34.5% by the end of April 2020 (Aydın et al., 2020 ). According to the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, European countries such as Spain, Italy, and, France as well as the US also showed a 20–30% reduction of NO 2 during the pandemic (Gautam, 2020a ).

The enduring global COVID-19 pandemic lockdown is revealing the direct link between the level of air pollution and the amount of economic activity, including manufacturing, transportation, energy generation, etc. This suggests that in order to fight air pollution, a renewable and green energy-based system will be required and should be widely adopted whenever possible in all areas, particularly at industrial sites. For instance, encouragement from governments, including tax reduction, subsidies, or monetary rewards to encourage the use of solar panels and windmills for both the residential and industrial sectors. This pandemic also provides an excellent chance for us to study and invent ways to monitor urban traffic and transportation in order to cut fuel consumption and maintain a healthy environment. Reduced road travel and fewer air flights throughout the world resulted in a significant reduction in fuel use. One way to maintain reduced road travel is to encourage public transit. Travelling via public transit consumes less energy and causes less pollution than travelling by private vehicles. In addition, providing financial incentives to promote the use of electric vehicles or bike riding are also pivotal steps towards a greener environment.

Water quality and aquatic life

Air pollutants in the atmosphere could cause nutrient pollution in waterways as well. For instance, NO 2 can react with other chemicals to form acid rain, which specifically causes harm to freshwater ecosystems including streams, rivers, lakes, and watersheds. Water acidification, along with the concomitant reduction in acid neutralization capacity, has led to deleterious changes in water quality (Akimoto, 2003 ; Clair & Hindar, 2005 ). With regards to the air pollution reduction mentioned earlier, there would be an expected reduction in acid rain formation thereby producing higher availability of freshwater globally.

Water ecosystems showed signs of recuperation in many parts of the world during the pandemic. There was an improvement in the water quality of the Ganga River, the ‘National River’ of India, during the lockdown especially around industrial clusters and urban areas. The effect could be seen in terms of increased dissolved oxygen and decreased biological oxygen demand, faecal coliform, total coliform, and nitrate concentration. With improved water quality, the river’s self-cleaning properties were enhanced. Typically, there are vast quantities of effluent from domestic and industrial wastewater that reach the river untreated or partially treated and this results in severe deterioration of water quality. Over the last two decades, several government programs cost the government millions of dollars without much success. During the lockdown period, there was a reduction of approximately 1300–1340 million litres per day of industrial wastewater. Other human activities like social and religious functions, waterways transport, fishing, and so forth were also prohibited, leading to less dumping of solid waste and less littering along its banks by residents and tourists. Recent research by the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, showed that the water of the Ganga River became fit for drinking purposes during the pandemic. As defined by the Central Pollution Control Board, the river was listed as category “A” and its waters were classified as fit for drinking with conventional treatment (Dutta et al., 2020 ; Upadhyay, 2020 ). Improvement was also observed in the Yamuna River, near Delhi. Measurements of the dissolved oxygen in the river water were as high as about 5 mg/L during the pandemic. After two months of COVID-19 lockdown, the water in Venice, Italy, also appeared cleaner and aquatic life became more noticeable, something not seen in the city for many years. As the number of tourists dropped, activity on the waterways, sediment churning, and other causes of water pollution dropped substantially causing the waters in Venice’s canals to be much cleaner compared to the time before COVID-19 (Saadat et al., 2020 ).

Another unexpected environmental impact was observed in aquatic life. Due to the migratory nature of fishermen and the frequency of international visitors, it was feared that fishing communities and ports could potentially become hotspots for COVID-19 infection (FAO, 2020 ). Therefore, many fisheries across the world experienced partial or complete shutdown resulting in a reduction of fishing activities during the pandemic. In addition to port shutdowns, there was a sharp decline in demand for seafood, loss of access to cold storage, and termination of shipping and air cargo services (Orlowski, 2020 ). The reduction in fishing and its related industries allowed marine ecosystems some time to recover. According to Dr. Rainer Froese of the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Germany, a decline in fishing caused by the pandemic would lead to a rise in fish biomass. European fish stocks such as whitefish, flatfish, and herring would nearly double their biomass if there were no fishing for one year. China also reported that tuna, which originally followed the Kuroshio Current to Japanese fishing grounds via the China Sea, appears to have stopped to feed in the China Sea (Korten, 2020 ). Furthermore, Carlos Quarte, research chair at the Red Sea Research Center in Saudi Arabia, stated that the pandemic accelerated the regeneration of fish populations allowing the Center to meet conservation targets faster. The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown was a de facto moratorium on heavily fished stocks which created an effect similar to the virtual cessation of commercial fishing during World Wars I and II.

There were also reports showing increases in sea mammals such as killer whales, dolphins, and seals in regions where they have not been seen in decades (Lombrana, 2020 ). In addition, endangered turtles are experiencing a resurgence. In Thailand, the nests for leatherback sea turtles are at their highest numbers in two decades. A similar trend was seen in Florida, US, with a significant increase of 76 leatherback sea turtle nests compared to 2019 (Geggel, 2020 ). The practices of pharmaceutical firms along with other overharvesting activities led to a decline in the number of horseshoe crabs over the decades. During the pandemic, there was a sign of recovery with hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs spawning on the shores of the Delaware Bay in the Eastern US. This in return assisted a rebound in red knot birds which rely on the eggs of the crabs for food (Nishan, 2020 ). A global mass coral bleaching has been occurring since 2014 due to global warming. During the pandemic, there were signs of rebound for the coral reef ecosystems. For instance, in Hawaii, there was an increase in the coral reef especially among baby corals when compared to 2019 (Tianna, 2020 ). Both the reduction in fisheries activities and the restoration of aquatic life during the pandemic may have caused a decline in the extraction of blue carbon that further reduced atmospheric CO 2 emissions (Mariani et al., 2020 ).

Although there have been some good environmental results from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, a few weeks or months will not be sufficient to undo or repair the environmental damage that has been done over many years. Governments need to build proper sewage treatment plants and ensure that businesses and industries dispose of their waste in accordance with strict rules and regulations, imposing heavy fines on violators. In the context of fisheries, better enforcement of national rules over fishing would likely improve fisheries management. International and regional agreements for the monitoring, control, and surveillance of local and international waters may help prevent overfishing. Researchers should also focus on action-oriented studies to identify the consequences of long-term food security as well as environmental and resource management implications of current fishing activities and seek alternatives for seafood-based food and other products.

Soil quality, land use, and wildlife sightings

The soil is an essential component of the ecosystem that regulates not only the surrounding environment but also affects water, climate, and food production (Mishra et al., 2020 ). Soil contamination from anthropogenic activities, specifically urbanisation, will reduce crop yield and its quality. It will also change soil organic matter and its biodiversity as well as the quality of groundwater (Singh & Singh, 2020 ). During the pandemic, there were reports of a significant reduction of solid waste. A survey from Tunisia showed that 85% of respondents indicated positive changes in food waste prevention by setting up a strategy of saving, storing, and eating leftovers (Jribi et al., 2020 ). In Morocco, two cities, Khenifra and Tighassaline, showed a reduction in municipal solid waste in March 2020 compared to March 2019 (2572 tons versus 2456 tons; 136 tons versus 126 tons, respectively) (Ouhsine et al., 2020 ). In Shanghai, China, there was a reduction of approximately 23% in household waste (Fan et al., 2020 ). Solid waste from industrial and construction activities was also reduced during the crisis (Qarani & Development, 2020 ).

Wastewater and sewage sludge contribute to soil pollution as well. Several reports indicated a decrease in municipal, industrial, commercial, and grey water waste during the pandemic. Increased green areas and lesser soil erosion were observed as well (Qarani & Development, 2020 ). One study indicated that every 1% increase in urban vegetation would result in a 2.6% decrease in cumulative COVID‐19 cases (You & Pan, 2020 ). Moreover, a notable change in the appearance of many beaches across the world could be seen during the pandemic lockdown. Waste generated by tourists was significantly reduced resulting in beaches such as Acapulco in Mexico, Barcelona in Spain, and Salinas in Ecuador now looking cleaner with clearer waters (Zambrano-Monserrate et al., 2020 ). A survey from observations on Salinas, Manta, and Galápagos beaches indicated that the lockdown also led to a temporary improvement of environmental conditions similar to marine protected areas. Approximately 45% of the Respondents agreed that the beaches are cleaner with lesser plastic (Ormaza-González & Castro-Rodas, 2020 ). As stated earlier, better air and water quality result in less acid contamination of the ground and thereby causing a drop in soil acidification. For all these reasons, soil contamination declined significantly and this led to improved soil quality.

There was also a surge in wildlife sightings during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, particularly in urban environments. These sightings included a wild puma in downtown Santiago, Chile, during a night-time curfew, and a herd of plundering goats on the streets of Llandudno, Wales (Child, 2020 ). These incidences are mainly due to a significant reduction in human mobility during the crisis. The COVID-19 “anthropause” reduced the destructive effects of our increasingly expansive lifestyles on the movement of animals (Rutz et al., 2020 ). This phenomenon may provide some insights for further research to better understand how we might improve coexistence between humans and wildlife, particularly in designing a more sustainable and wildlife-friendly environment.

Consumer involvement is vital in reducing domestic waste and creating a healthier environment. Using eco-friendly products and implementing the concept of “reduce, reuse, and recycle” would have a big impact. Governments and businesses need to reduce deforestation and plant more trees to increase green areas and reduce soil erosion. On top of that, an increase in urban vegetation will help restore some balance in habitats that were destroyed during urbanization. Seeing a resurgence of some species and a return to certain habitats of others during the lockdown is a persuasive argument for better township planning and more protected areas and wildlife conservation zones. Finally, more research to gather data that can be used to develop better environmental regulations for wildlife is needed.

Reduction of noise pollution and impact on co-inhabitants

Automobile traffic, ships on the sea, aircraft, industry, and other human activities are all sources of seismic noise. In order to flatten the contagion curve, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown created a widespread reduction in human activity, leading to a months-long reduction of up to 50% in seismic noise. This is the longest and most prominent recorded reduction in global anthropogenic seismic noise throughout history (Lecocq et al., 2020 ).

One study found significant noise reduction in China in late January 2020 and then Italy, the whole of Europe, and the rest of the world between March and April 2020. The lockdown measures in mainland China contributed to a marked decrease of roughly 4–12 dB in cultural noise (seismic noise with frequencies above 1 Hz). There was, on the other hand, a smaller decrease in seismic noise of around 1–6 dB in Italy after the country was locked down since traffic in Italy did not decrease as much as in China (Xiao et al., 2020 ). A 33% reduction in seismic noise was found after a lockdown in Brussels, Belgium (Lecocq et al., 2020 ). In the City of Madrid, there was a reduction of 4 to 6 dBA captured by the monitoring network during the lockdown (Asensio et al., 2020 ). In the island nation of Barbados in the Caribbean, due to a reduction in tourism, the seismic noise from March to April 2020 decreased by approximately 45% compared to observations made for the same period in 2019. A permanent seismic station in Sri Lanka indicated a reduction of nearly 50%, the highest recorded since July 2013 (Lecocq et al., 2020 ). A study also showed that the pandemic lockdown led to a 5–10 dB reduction of the anthropogenic noise level in Shillong, India (Somala, 2020 ).

More than 200 million people around the world are affected by noise pollution (Mirzaei et al., 2012 ). Nearly 40% of the population in the countries of the European Union were subjected to road traffic noise with an equivalent sound pressure level of more than 55 dBA. Most of those people live in areas that do not provide residents with acoustic comfort. In cities in developing countries, the noise pollution problem is also severe and is primarily caused by traffic-induced noise (Berglund et al., 1999 ). The Environmental Expert Council of Germany stated that the persistence of extreme irritation from noise over extended periods of time may lead to distress (Ising & Kruppa, 2004 ). Many epidemiological studies in the past have identified the correlation between exposure to noise pollution and numerous medical conditions such as myocardial infarction, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, sleep disorders, psychiatric disorders, weakened immune systems, and birth defects (Geravandi et al., 2015 ). The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown had altered the soundscape and led to a significant reduction in noise pollution. This could result in fewer noise-induced health impairments.

Noise pollution is also a threat to animals with a considerable impact on communication, use of space, and their reproduction rate (Sordello et al., 2020 ). A research was conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area, before and after the recent state-wide confinement, to determine whether a common songbird (white-crowned sparrow) would responsively utilize the newly emptied acoustic space. The birds reacted by generating higher performance songs at lower amplitudes, effectively optimizing the distance and salience of communication (Derryberry et al., 2020 ). Omnipresent anthropogenic noise is also one of the most hazardous forms of pollution in aquatic ecosystems. This includes sounds produced by human activity such as commercial shipping, oil exploration, construction activities, military and mapping sonars (Hildebrand, 2009 ). There was a significant reduction in ocean ambient noise during the pandemic. A study was conducted during the first quarter of 2020 in both the deep ocean and inland waters of Canada’s Pacific coast using the near real-time ocean sensing networks North-East Pacific Time-series Undersea Networked Experiments (NEPTUNE) and Victoria Experimental Network Under the Sea (VENUS). The NEPTUNE observatory reported an average reduction of 1.5 dB in the mean weekly noise power spectral density at 100 Hz year-over-year. The overall change in power at 100 Hz showed a drop of 2.7–7.1 dB on both the Central and East nodes of the VENUS observatory, respectively, using the time series of the difference in median weekly power (Thomson & Barclay, 2020 ). Many sea creatures like Baleens whales use sounds in the water to navigate, hunt for food, and communicate (Tyack & Clark, 2000 ). A study showed that there was an association between noise reduction and decreased baseline levels of stress-related faecal hormone metabolites (glucocorticoids) in North Atlantic right whales ( Eubalaena glacialis ). This might result in a recovery of the endangered right whale population due to less noise pollution (Rolland et al., 2012 ). Zooplankton and tens of thousands of fish species, which are sensitive to noises, may also have had higher chances to go through their spawning cycle and flourish due to the decline of underwater ocean noise during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Companies and vehicle manufacturers should increase their efforts to design automobiles that emit less noise. Noise barriers can also be installed since they are effective at blocking the direct flow of sound waves from the highway or other busy regions to houses, businesses, and natural habitats. Much can be done to lessen the noise produced from shipping and transport. Reducing nighttime traffic, proper terminal allocation, reducing the airflow of fans, lowering the energy consumption of ships, and utilizing an onshore power supply, particularly at night, appear to be viable options (Čurović et al., 2021 ). Additional metrics defining human activities that generate noise need to be developed so that people have a better understanding of their area’s noise environment. Similar to weather stations established to gather data for weather forecasts, additional noise indicators may need to be set up at various places to measure the level of noise pollution in order to provide information to the public about noise pollution, an invisible danger that is often neglected.

Planetary health and zoonotic disease

Of note, there were enormous environmental benefits as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown that could have paradoxically reduced the number of morbidities and mortalities due to anthropogenic pollution. Unfortunately, the resumption of large industrial activities will likely reverse all these environmental improvements.

The Economist Intelligence Unit measured the readiness to confront climate change of the world’s 82 largest economies. Due to the impact of higher temperatures and more severe weather events, the climate change Resilience Index showed that there would be a 3% drop in the global gross domestic product by 2050 with developing nations having poorer resilience than richer ones. By mid-century, climate change could result in direct costs to the world economy of $7.9 trillion as intensified droughts, floods, and crop failures impede development and endanger infrastructure (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2019 ). According to the WHO, the social and environmental determinants of health, like clean air and water, adequate food, and secure shelter are affected by climate change. An increase of about 250,000 additional deaths are expected each year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea, and heat stress between 2030 and 2050 (World Health Organization, 2018 ). Therefore, no party should ignore climate change or downplay the consequences of it.

Anthrax, another zoonotic disease, severely affected reindeer herds in Siberia and led to an outbreak in 2016. It was reported that the pathogen was released from infected carcasses in permafrost soil as the ice thawed (Stella et al., 2020 ). Anthrax may not be the only infectious disease lurking in the ice. There is speculation that there are tens of thousands of carcasses with infectious disease preserved in the frozen soil. For instance, victims of the 1918 Spanish flu were found in the permafrost with ground-penetrating radar (Davis et al., 2000 ). As global warming continues to increase the temperature of the planet, we may experience the re-emergence of pathogens that were already eradicated in the past or that are new to us and which could serve as serious health threats to both animals and human beings. Regrettably, the positive changes from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown will not be permanent and will not mitigate climate change and environmental issues. However, it surely serves as a practical lesson to the world that environmental degradation and climate change are still reversible and that it is possible to take drastic measures to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations for the long-term environmental health of the planet. This includes measures like extensive utilisation of clean energy and changing our sources and means of producing food. Food production accounts for approximately 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions and the largest contribution to that is from livestock and fisheries (Poore & Nemecek, 2018 ). The WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stated that the COVID-19 outbreak will not be the last pandemic and without addressing climate change and animal welfare, efforts to improve human health are hopeless (Millard, 2020 ). While there is still time for us to repair much of the environmental damage that has already been done, world leaders should revisit and revise their national policies to emphasize the urgency of environmental matters. With that and other measures, such as addressing animal welfare, hopefully, another COVID-19-like pandemic can be averted.

Limitation of the study and recommendation

We acknowledge that since the study only focused on the positive global environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, this may result in some inherent bias. Therefore, regardless of the positive impacts on the environment discussed above, we recognise that there were also negative consequences on planetary health during the COVID-19 lockdown. There is mounting evidence that indoor air pollution is a severe threat to human health (Mannucci & Franchini, 2017 ). Indoor activities from household or workstation tasks all contribute to indoor pollution (Amoatey et al., 2020 ). These emissions must remain within acceptable levels and should be monitored on a regular basis in order to implement effective pollution mitigation strategies (Agarwal et al., 2021 ). There were also studies that showed a positive association of air pollutants with increasing cases of COVID-19 (Coker et al., 2020 ; Wu et al., 2020 ). This is particularly important because, during the pandemic lockdown, people were forced to stay indoors. Therefore, measures like ensuring proper ventilation are critical to offering a healthy indoor environment for the safety of inhabitants and at the same time, to reduce the spread of the disease (Agarwal et al., 2021 ). While many places experienced improved water quality in natural resources, wastewater treatment plants reported a higher level of organic load and chemical contaminants due to the increased use of sanitisers, disinfectants, and antibiotics (Elsaid et al., 2021 ). Wastewater had to be properly treated before being discharged into biological treatment facilities and subsequently into water bodies (Leonhauser et al., 2014 ). In addition, wastewater can also capture viruses like COVID-19 that shed during personal hygiene and are present in the excretion or discharge from human beings, such as from the mouth cavity, upper respiratory tract, faeces, and urine (Cheung et al., 2020 ). Wastewater analysis was shown to be sensitive to viral testing and cost-effective and thus, could be employed as a surveillance tool for epidemiological studies. When compared to individual COVID-19 testing, wastewater analysis is clearly less invasive, simpler, and less expensive. It is an important component in effectively combatting COVID-19 and in improving our preparation in the case of viral re-emergence (Randazzo et al., 2020 ). On the other hand, there was an unavoidable increase in the use of personal protective equipment, such as gloves, masks, etc., that directly increased the amount of medical waste. For instance, in Wuhan city, China, the epicentre of COVID-19, there was an extra 200 tons of medical waste in a single day on 24th February 2020 (Bashir et al., 2020 ). Hence, effective and stringent waste management measures must be implemented before another major source of environmental pollution arises.

In return, the beneficial environmental effects also resulted in some feedback loop effects on the COVID-19. For instance, it was hypothesized that the COVID-19 virus can bind to PM and increase the chance of survival of the virus in the atmosphere under conditions of atmospheric stability (McNeill, 2020 ). If proven, the spread of the coronavirus could be curbed with improved air quality. There is also a possibility that healthy or active soil might serve as a medium to halt the spread of COVID-19. Viruses, when in contact with soil and its clay fractions or particles (either kaolinite or most preferably bentonite), will be weakened and controlled naturally. This may help to slow down the rapid spread of COVID-19. A further systematic investigation is required to study and validate the association (Mishra et al., 2020 ).

Conclusions

While the negative impacts from the pandemic cannot be ignored, the COVID-19 crisis has presented an extraordinary situation with substantial environmental gain. The positive impacts on global environmental and planetary health that the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown brought about are noteworthy, even if they will be quickly erased as the world goes from lockdowns to a gradual return to normalcy. Therefore, behavioural changes such as adopting a lifestyle that reduces carbon footprint are needed to make a positive impact on the environment. Even though environmental health is improving, efforts to mitigate the long-lasting and ongoing environmental pollution remains a herculean task. Ideally, measures should be taken to lengthen the positive impacts we experienced from the pandemic in the hope that the earth’s self-recuperative properties will carry on for the long term. At the same time, observations and knowledge gained of the positive environmental impacts of the pandemic should be documented and used to help make comprehensive evidence-based public policies for the survival of humankind. World leaders should consider the national policy changes necessary to ensure continuity of as many of the positive environmental impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown as possible. Those changes would also serve to lessen the likelihood of another zoonotic calamity.

Agarwal, N., Meena, C. S., Raj, B. P., Saini, L., Kumar, A., Gopalakrishnan, N., Kumar, A., Balam, N. B., Alam, T., Kapoor, N. R., & Aggarwal, V. (2021). Indoor air quality improvement in COVID-19 pandemic: Review. Sustainable Cities and Society . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.102942

Article   Google Scholar  

Akimoto, H. (2003). Global air quality and pollution. Science, 302 (5651), 1716–1719. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1092666

Amoatey, P., Omidvarborna, H., Baawain, M. S., & Al-Mamun, A. (2020). Impact of building ventilation systems and habitual indoor incense burning on SARS-CoV-2 virus transmissions in Middle Eastern countries. Science of the Total Environment . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139356

Asensio, C., Pavón, I., & de Arcas, G. (2020). Changes in noise levels in the city of Madrid during COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 148 (3), 1748. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0002008

Aydın, S., Nakiyingi, B. A., Esmen, C., Güneysu, S., & Ejjada, M. (2020). Environmental impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) from Turkish perceptive. Environment, Development and Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-00933-5

Google Scholar  

Bashir, M. F., Ma, B., & Shahzad, L. (2020). A brief review of socio-economic and environmental impact of Covid-19. Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health, 13 (12), 1403–1409. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-020-00894-8

Berglund, B., Lindvall, T., & Schwela, D. H. (1999). Guidelines for community noise. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://www.who.int/docstore/peh/noise/Comnoise-1

Cheung, K. S., Hung, I. F. N., Chan, P. P. Y., Lung, K. C., Tso, E., Liu, R., Ng, Y. Y., Chu, M. Y., Chung, T. W. H., Tam, A. R., Yip, C. C. Y., Leung, K. H., Fung, A. Y., Zhang, R. R., Lin, Y., Cheng, H. M., Zhang, A. J. X., To, K. K. W., Chan, K. H., … Leung, W. K. (2020). Gastrointestinal manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 infection and virus load in fecal samples from a Hong Kong cohort: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Gastroenterology, 159 (1), 81–95. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2020.03.065

Child, D. (2020). The positive impacts on the environment since the coronavirus lockdown began. Evening Standard. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/positive-impact-environment-coronavirus-lockdown-a4404751.html

Clair, T. A., & Hindar, A. J. E. R. (2005). Liming for the mitigation of acid rain effects in freshwaters: A review of recent results. Environmental Reviews, 13 (3), 91–128. https://doi.org/10.1139/a05-009

Clay, K., & Muller, N. Z. (2019). Recent increases in air pollution: Evidence and implications for mortality. National Bureau of Economic Research . https://doi.org/10.3386/w26381

Cohen, A. J., Brauer, M., Burnett, R., Anderson, H. R., Frostad, J., Estep, K., Balakrishnan, K., Brunekreef, B., Dandona, L., & Dandona, R. (2017). Estimates and 25-year trends of the global burden of disease attributable to ambient air pollution: an analysis of data from the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2015. The Lancet, 389 (10082), 1907–1918. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30505-6

Coker, E. S., Cavalli, L., Fabrizi, E., Guastella, G., Lippo, E., Parisi, M. L., Pontarollo, N., Rizzati, M., Varacca, A., & Vergalli, S. (2020). The effects of air pollution on COVID-19 related mortality in Northern Italy. Environmental and Resource Economics, 76 (4), 611–634. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-020-00486-1

Čurović, L., Jeram, S., Murovec, J., Novaković, T., Rupnik, K., & Prezelj, J. (2021). Impact of COVID-19 on environmental noise emitted from the port. Science of The Total Environment . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144147

Davis, J. L., Heginbottom, J. A., Annan, A. P., Daniels, R. S., Berdal, B. P., Bergan, T., Duncan, K. E., Lewin, P. K., Oxford, J. S., Roberts, N., Skehel, J. J., & Smith, C. R. (2000). Ground penetrating radar surveys to locate 1918 Spanish flu victims in permafrost. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 45 (1), 68–76.

Derryberry, E. P., Phillips, J. N., Derryberry, G. E., Blum, M. J., & Luther, D. (2020). Singing in a silent spring: Birds respond to a half-century soundscape reversion during the COVID-19 shutdown. Science, 370 (6516), 575–579. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abd5777

Dutheil, F., Baker, J. S., & Navel, V. (2020). COVID-19 as a factor influencing air pollution? Environmental Pollution . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2020.114466

Dutta, V., Dubey, D., & Kumar, S. (2020). Cleaning the River Ganga: Impact of lockdown on water quality and future implications on river rejuvenation strategies. Science of The Total Environment . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140756

Economist Intelligence Unit. (2019). Global economy will be 3 percent smaller by 2050 due to lack of climate resilience. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://www.eiu.com/n/global-economy-will-be-3-percent-smaller-by-2050-due-to-lack-of-climate-resilience/

Elsaid, K., Olabi, V., Sayed, E. T., Wilberforce, T., & Abdelkareem, M. A. (2021). Effects of COVID-19 on the environment: An overview on air, water, wastewater, and solid waste. Journal of Environmental Management . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112694

Fan, Y. V., Jiang, P., Hemzal, M., & Klemeš, J. J. (2020). An update of COVID-19 influence on waste management. The Science of the Total Environment, 754 , 142014–142014. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142014

FAO. (2020). How is COVID‐19 affecting the fisheries and aquaculture food systems https://doi.org/10.4060/ca8637en

Fust, W. (2010). Human impact report: Climate change—the anatomy of a silent crisis. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://www.preventionweb.net/files/9668_humanimpactreport1

Gautam, S. (2020a). COVID-19: Air pollution remains low as people stay at home. Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health, 13 (7), 853–857. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-020-00842-6

Gautam, S. (2020b). The influence of COVID-19 on Air quality in India: A boon or inutile. Bulletin of Environment Contamination and Toxicology, 104 (6), 724–726. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-020-02877-y

Geggel, L. (2020). Baby leatherback sea turtles thriving due to COVID-19 beach restrictions. Live Science. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://www.livescience.com/leatherback-sea-turtle-babies-thrive-covid-19-pandemic.html

Geravandi, S., Takdastan, A., Zallaghi, E., Vousoghi Niri, M., Mohammadi, M. J., Saki, H., & Naiemabadi, A. (2015). Noise pollution and health effects. Jundishapur Journal of Health Sciences , 7 (1).

Grange, S. K., Lee, J. D., Drysdale, W. S., Lewis, A. C., Hueglin, C., Emmenegger, L., & Carslaw, D. C. (2020). COVID-19 lockdowns highlight a risk of increasing ozone pollution in European urban areas. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, 2020 , 1–25. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2020-1171

Hart, O. E., & Halden, R. U. (2020). Computational analysis of SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 surveillance by wastewater-based epidemiology locally and globally: Feasibility, economy, opportunities and challenges. Science of The Total Environment, 730 , 138875.

Helm, D. (2020). The environmental impacts of the coronavirus. Environmental and Resource Economics, 76 (1), 21–38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-020-00426-z

Hildebrand, J. A. (2009). Anthropogenic and natural sources of ambient noise in the ocean. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 395 , 5–20. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps08353

Huang, C., Wang, T., Niu, T., Li, M., Liu, H., & Ma, C. (2021). Study on the variation of air pollutant concentration and its formation mechanism during the COVID-19 period in Wuhan. Atmospheric Environment . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2021.118276

Huckelba, A. L., & Van Lange, P. A. (2020). The silent killer: Consequences of climate change and how to survive past the year 2050. Sustainability . https://doi.org/10.3390/su12093757

IQAir. (2019). World’s most polluted cities 2019 (PM2.5). Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://www.iqair.com/world-most-polluted-cities

Ising, H., & Kruppa, B. (2004). Health effects caused by noise: Evidence in the literature from the past 25 years. Noise and Health 6(22): 5–13. https://www.noiseandhealth.org/article.asp?issn=1463-1741;year=2004;volume=6;issue=22;spage=5;epage=13;aulast=Ising

Jribi, S., Ben Ismail, H., Doggui, D., & Debbabi, H. (2020). COVID-19 virus outbreak lockdown: What impacts on household food wastage? Environment, Development and Sustainability . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-00740-y

Korten, T. (2020). With bats stuck in harbor because of COVID-19, will fish bounce back? Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/fish-stop-covid-19-180974623/

Lecocq, T., Hicks, S. P., Van Noten, K., Van Wijk, K., Koelemeijer, P., De Plaen, R. S., Massin, F., Hillers, G., Anthony, R. E., & Apoloner, M.-T. (2020). Global quieting of high-frequency seismic noise due to COVID-19 pandemic lockdown measures. Science, 369 (6509), 1338–1343. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abd2438

Lenzen, M., Li, M., Malik, A., Pomponi, F., Sun, Y. Y., Wiedmann, T., Faturay, F., Fry, J., Gallego, B., Geschke, A., & Gómez-Paredes, J. (2020). Global socio-economic losses and environmental gains from the Coronavirus pandemic. PloS one . https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235654

Leonhauser, J., Pawar, J., Birkenbeul, U., Ranade, V., & Bhandari, V. (2014). Novel technologies for the elimination of pollutants and hazardous substances in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Industrial Wastewater Treatment, Recycling Reuse

Lombrana, L. M. (2020). With fishing fleets tied up, marine life given a chance to recover. Bloomberg. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/with-fishing-fleets-tied-up-marine-life-has-a-chance-to-recover

López-Feldman, A., Heres, D., & Marquez-Padilla, F. (2021). Air pollution exposure and COVID-19: A look at mortality in Mexico City using individual-level data. The Science of the Total Environment . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143929

Lovrić, M., Pavlović, K., Vuković, M., Grange, S. K., Haberl, M., & Kern, R. (2021). Understanding the true effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on air pollution by means of machine learning. Environmental Pollution (Barking, Essex: 1987) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2020.115900

Mannucci, P. M., & Franchini, M. (2017). Health effects of ambient air pollution in developing countries. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Halth . https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14091048

Mariani, G., Cheung, W. W., Lyet, A., Sala, E., Mayorga, J., Velez, L., Gaines, S. D., Dejean, T., Troussellier, M., & Mouillot, D. (2020). Let more big fish sink: Fisheries prevent blue carbon sequestration-half in unprofitable areas. Science Advances . https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb4848

McNeill, V. F. (2020). COVID-19 and the air we breathe. ACS Earth & Space Chemistry . https://doi.org/10.1021/acsearthspacechem.0c00093

Millard, R. (2020). WHO chief: COVID won’t be last pandemic; ‘short-sighted’ stance dooms our health. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://www.timesofisrael.com/who-chief-warns-covid-19-pandemic-wont-be-the-last/

Mirzaei, R., Ansari, M. A., Mohammadi, M., Rakhshani, F., & Salmanpor, M. (2012). Noise pollution in zahedan and residents’knowledge about noise pollution. Health Scope, 1 (1), 3–6. https://doi.org/10.5812/jhs.4544

Mishra, B. B., Roy, R., Singh, S. K., Sharma, S. K., Prasad, B. D., Choudhary, S. K., Jha, A. K., & Sahni, S. (2020). Preventive measures against transmission and multiplication of COVID-19 following the simple natural laws with soil clay, and biodiversity. Communities, 5 (2), 622–632.

Mitra, P., Misra, S., & Sharma, P. (2020). COVID-19 Pandemic in India: What lies ahead. Indian Journal of Clinical Biochemistry . https://doi.org/10.1007/s12291-020-00886-6

Muhammad, S., Long, X., & Salman, M. (2020). COVID-19 pandemic and environmental pollution: A blessing in disguise? Science of The Total Environment . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138820

Nishan, D. (2020). Six places where oceans, rivers and Marine life have rebounded during the coronavirus pandemic. Forbes. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/nishandegnarain/2020/05/16/six-places-where-oceans-rivers-and-marine-life-have-rebounded-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic/?sh=141cd893fb05

Orlowski, A. (2020). Small-scale fishermen suffering significantly from COVID-19 pandemic. SeafoodSource. Retrieved 5 Jan 2021 from https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/supply-trade/small-scale-fishermen-suffering-significantly-from-covid-19-pandemic

Ormaza-González, F., & Castro-Rodas, D. (2020). COVID-19 Impacts on beaches and coastal water pollution: Management proposals post-pandemic https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202006.0186.v1

Ouhsine, O., Ouigmane, A., Layati, E., Aba, B., Isaifan, R., & Berkani, M. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 on the qualitative and quantitative aspect of household solid waste. Global Journal of Environmental Science Management, 6(Special Issue (Covid-19)): 41–52 https://doi.org/10.22034/GJESM.2019.06.SI.05

Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. J. S. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360 (6392), 987–992. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216

Qarani, A. S. (2020). Potential impact of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on environmental parameters. Recycling and Sustainable Development, 13 (1), 49–61. https://doi.org/10.5937/ror2001049A

Randazzo, W., Cuevas-Ferrando, E., Sanjuán, R., Domingo-Calap, P., & Sánchez, G. (2020). Metropolitan wastewater analysis for COVID-19 epidemiological surveillance. International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheh.2020.113621

Rolland, R. M., Parks, S. E., Hunt, K. E., Castellote, M., Corkeron, P. J., Nowacek, D. P., Wasser, S. K., & Kraus, S. D. (2012). Evidence that ship noise increases stress in right whales. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 279 (1737), 2363–2368.

Rutz, C., Loretto, M.-C., Bates, A. E., Davidson, S. C., Duarte, C. M., Jetz, W., Johnson, M., Kato, A., Kays, R., Mueller, T., Primack, R. B., Ropert-Coudert, Y., Tucker, M. A., Wikelski, M., & Cagnacci, F. (2020). COVID-19 lockdown allows researchers to quantify the effects of human activity on wildlife. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 4 (9), 1156–1159. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1237-z

Saadat, S., Rawtani, D., & Hussain, C. M. (2020). Environmental perspective of COVID-19. Science of the Total Environment . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138870

Sarkodie, S. A., & Owusu, P. A. (2020). Impact of meteorological factors on COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from top 20 countries with confirmed cases. Environmental Research . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2020.110101

Screen, J. A., & Deser, C. (2019). Pacific Ocean variability influences the time of emergence of a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean. Geophysical Research Letters, 46 (4), 2222–2231. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL081393

Shah, J. N., Shah, J., & Shah, J. (2020). Quarantine, isolation and lockdown: In context of COVID-19. Journal of Patan Academy of Health Sciences, 7 (1), 48–57. https://doi.org/10.3126/jpahs.v7i1.28863

Shakil, M. H., Munim, Z. H., Tasnia, M., & Sarowar, S. (2020). COVID-19 and the environment: A critical review and research agenda. Science of the Total Environment . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141022

Singh, S., & Singh, M. (2020). Soil Pollution and Human Health. In Plant Responses to Soil Pollution, Springer, (pp. 205–220).

Somala, S. N. (2020). Seismic noise changes during COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of Shillong, India. Natural Hazards (dordrecht, Netherlands) . https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-020-04045-1

Sordello, R., Ratel, O., Flamerie De Lachapelle, F., Leger, C., Dambry, A., & Vanpeene, S. (2020). Evidence of the impact of noise pollution on biodiversity: A systematic map. Environmental Evidence, 9 (1), 20. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13750-020-00202-y

Stella, E., Mari, L., Gabrieli, J., Barbante, C., & Bertuzzo, E. (2020). Permafrost dynamics and the risk of anthrax transmission: A modelling study. Scientific Reports, 10 (1), 16460. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-72440-6

Straka, W., Kondragunta, S., Wei, Z., Zhang, H., Miller, S. D., & Watts, A. (2021). Examining the economic and environmental impacts of COVID-19 using earth observation data. Remote Sensing . https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13010005

Thomson, D. J., & Barclay, D. R. (2020). Real-time observations of the impact of COVID-19 on underwater noise. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 147 (5), 3390–3396. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0001271

Tianna, M. (2020). A time for healing: Hawaii’s coral reefs rebound during COVID-19. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://hitchcockproject.org/hawaii-coral-reefs-healing/

Tsangaras, K., & Greenwood, A. D. (2018). Paleovirology: Viral sequences from historical and ancient DNA. In Paleogenomics, Springer, (pp. 139–162).

Tyack, P. L., & Clark, C. W. (2000). Communication and acoustic behavior of Dolphins and Whales (Hearing by Whales and Dolphins. Springer Handbook of Auditory Research), vol. 12, (Ed.). Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1150-1_4

Upadhyay, V. (2020). Lockdown effect: Ganga water fit for drinking after decades, say experts. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/may/08/lockdown-effect-ganga-water-fit-for-drinking-after-decades-say-experts-2140622.html

Van Donkelaar, A., Martin, R. V., Brauer, M., Kahn, R., Levy, R., Verduzco, C., & Villeneuve, P. J. (2010). Global estimates of ambient fine particulate matter concentrations from satellite-based aerosol optical depth: Development and application. Environmental health perspectives, 118 (6), 847–855. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.0901623

Wang, Q., Lu, M., Bai, Z., & Wang, K. (2020). Coronavirus pandemic reduced China’s CO2 emissions in short-term, while stimulus packages may lead to emissions growth in medium-and long-term. Applied Energy . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115735

Wang, Q., & Su, M. (2020). A preliminary assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on environment—A case study of China. Science of The Total Environment . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138915

World Health Organization. (2018). Climate change and health. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021 from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health

Wu, X., Nethery, R. C., Sabath, B. M., Braun, D., & Dominici, F. (2020). Exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States. medRxiv.

Xiao, H., Eilon, Z. C., Ji, C., & Tanimoto, T. (2020). COVID-19 societal response captured by seismic noise in China and Italy. Seismological Society of America, 91 (5), 2757–2768. https://doi.org/10.1785/0220200147

You, Y., & Pan, S. (2020). Urban vegetation slows down the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the United States. Geophysical Research Letters, 47 (18), e2020GL089286. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL089286

Zambrano-Monserrate, M. A., Ruano, M. A., & Sanchez-Alcalde, L. (2020). Indirect effects of COVID-19 on the environment. The Science of the Total Environment, 728 , 138813–138813. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138813

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Director-General of Health Malaysia for his permission to publish this article.

No funding was received for conducting this study.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Clinical Research Centre, Hospital Seberang Jaya, Ministry of Health Malaysia, 13700, Seberang Jaya, Penang, Malaysia

Hong Chuan Loh, Irene Looi & Alan Swee Hock Ch’ng

Medical Department, Hospital Seberang Jaya, Ministry of Health Malaysia, 13700, Seberang Jaya, Penang, Malaysia

Irene Looi & Alan Swee Hock Ch’ng

School of Computing, Faculty of Computing and Engineering, Quest International University, 30250, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia

Khang Wen Goh

PAP Rashidah Sa’adatul Bolkiah Institute of Health Sciences, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Gadong, Brunei Darussalam

Long Chiau Ming

School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Integrated Life Sciences, Quest International University, 30250, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia

Kean Hua Ang

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

Conceptualization, H.C.L., I.L., A.S.H.C.; methodology, H.C.L., I.L., A.S.H.C., and K.H.A.; validation, H.C.L., L.C.M., and K.H.A..; formal analysis, H.C.L.,K.W.G., L.C.M., and K.H.A.; investigation, H.C.L., I.L., A.S.H.C., K.W.G., L.C.M., and K.H.A.; resources, H.C.L., I.L., A.S.H.C., K.W.G., L.C.M., and K.H.A.; data curation, H.C.L., and K.H.A.; writing—original draft preparation, H.C.L., I.L., L.C.M., and K.H.A.; writing—review and editing, H.C.L., I.L., A.S.H.C., K.W.G., L.C.M., and K.H.A.; supervision, I.L., A.S.H.C., L.C.M., and K.H.A.; project administration, H.C.L., I.L., and A.S.H.C.; funding acquisition, K.H.A.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kean Hua Ang .

Ethics declarations

Conflicts of interest.

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Consent for publication

All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Ethical approval

Medical Review & Ethics Committee (MREC), Ministry of Health Malaysia granted the exemption.

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Loh, H.C., Looi, I., Ch’ng, A.S.H. et al. Positive global environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown: a review. GeoJournal 87 , 4425–4437 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-021-10475-6

Download citation

Accepted : 16 July 2021

Published : 23 July 2021

Issue Date : October 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-021-10475-6

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Environmental health
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Positive global environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown: a review

2021, GeoJournal

Related Papers

Infection Ecology & Epidemiology

Josef Järhult

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PLANT AND ENVIRONMENT

NEHA JAISWAL

The unforeseen COVID-19 has spread over the world, affecting almost 5 million people in 213 countries. Lockdown measures havebeen implemented in several nations, limiting people to their homes and substantially curtailing economic and social activity. Theimplementation of lockdown halted all the industrial, social, and commercial activities, and had a positive impact on environmentalparameters viz., air, water, noise, biodiversity, and wildlife. The decrease in PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2were recorded with an average value of43, 31, 10, and 18%, respectively because of the reduction in transportation and industrial emission in India. Considerable recovery ofwater quality in lotic ecosystems was observed at several places in the world. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the global lockdown hasalso dropped the noise level ranging from 2.1 dB to 6 dB at several places viz., Europe, Colombia and USA. Wildlife and biodiversity ofthe world had responded to the COVID-19 shutdown. Human movements in na...

Global Journal of Ecology

MINTAH STEPHEN

Microsphere

The influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the environment garnered attention from the outset of the crisis, with observations and studies of immediate repercussions as well as long-term forecasts. Year 2020 has been billed a &quot;Super Year for Nature&quot; in a variety of conversations on environmental issues. Epidemics and even pandemics are influenced by a variety of biological variables, which can result in a variety of environmental feedbacks. The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was designated a pandemic on March 11, 2020, and its quick onset, vast geographic spread, and complex implications make it a once-in-ageneration global calamity. The COVID-19 pandemic had a wide range of environmental repercussions by in the year 2020, both beneficial and harmful, such as air and water quality improvements in metropolitan areas and disastrous contamination owing to the disposal of biomedical and organic waste that piled up during this period. This review presents a summary of the ...

Review on Agriculture and Rural Development

The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) first occurred in late December 2019 at the Hunan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, and was declared an international public health emergency in a matter of weeks by the World Health Organization. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) affects every area of human life, including the environment. Measures taken to control the spread of the virus and the slowdown in economic activities have significant positive effects on the environment. Through this study, the authors intend to track the impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on the environment by analyzing the available scientific literature. The study indicates that the pandemic situation significantly improves air quality in various cities around the world, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, reduces water pollution and noise, and reduces pressure on tourist destinations, which can help restore ecological systems. It is noted that there are some negative consequences of the pandemic, such as the increase in medical waste through the use and disposal of disinfectants, masks and gloves but also the burden of untreated waste that endangers the environment continuously. It seems that shortly after the pandemic the economic activities will return and the situation could change. Therefore, this study highlights the potential positive impacts of the pandemic on the environment in the long-term. It is expected that the correct implementation of the proposed strategies can be useful for the global sustainability of the environment.

Natural Volatiles and Essential Oils

Dr. S.T. Gopu Kumar

Several external factors affect the onset and spreading of epidemics and even pandemics, which can result in environmental feedbacks. On March 13, 2020, the new coronavirus illness (COVID-19) was proclaimed an epidemic, and its quick start, wide geographic scope, and complicated effects make it a what if worldwide disaster. The majority of countries reacted by enacting social separation measures and drastically curtailing commercial and other operations. As a result, in the April 2020 end, the COVID-19 will have had a wide range of environmental consequences, both beneficial and bad, like improved air and water worth in metropolitan arenas and coastal contamination owing to the dumping of sanitary consumables. This paper provides an initial summary of the COVID-19's confirmed and prospective environmental effects. We contend that COVID-19's impacts are mostly controlled by anthropogenic variables that are becoming more apparent as human movement declines over the world, and that the repercussions on cities and global safety will persist in the near future. The COVID-19 crisis serves as a wake-up call for climate policy, international governance, and disaster preparedness. Generally. Indeed, this disease is a simulated climate variation experiment in which the clock is ticking. The scale of trials is shrunk from eras to days. Whereas the earlier is frequently expressed as a percentage, the latter is frequently expressed as a percentage. The former is measured in decades, centuries, and millennia, whereas the latter is evaluated in days, weeks, months, and years.

International Journal for Research in Applied Science and Engineering Technology IJRASET

IJRASET Publication

The novel coronavirus pandemic disease (COVID-19) poses a cruel preference to the world: the society and the economy. It has discovered the vulnerabilities and strengths of every country and has taught us a sequence of lifelong lessons. It was started in Wuhan, China and now spread all over the world. Most of the countries implemented lockdown in their countries to control this pandemic and slow down its spread. Lockdown due to COVID-19 has drastic outcomes on social and economic fronts. On the other hand, lockdown also has some positive impact on the natural environment. Coronavirus is a vaccine to the environment to which we humans are the virus. There are very positive effects on the environment since there has been a complete shutdown of public transport, educational institutes, business centers, and all other social interaction points. The air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, etc have reduced a lot in these few months of lockdown which took place all over the world. According to the recent data released by NASA and ESA, the pollution in some of the epicenters of COVID-19 has reduced up to 30%. The second most populated nation, India has also seen a drop in the pollution level. While the complete shutdown of India's economy was done by our Prime Minister to stop the spread of this coronavirus, it is having an additional health benefit of clearing the air that millions of people were choking on. The Central Pollution Control Board of India's Environment Ministry has also shown a 71% decrease in the level of Nitrogen dioxide. The quality of the air will sooner be pure because of the less vehicular traffic and rise in temperature. This research paper will compile a deep study and analysis of the situation of the environmental pollution post this coronavirus and how due to the lockdown, a measure taken by the government to control this virus helped the environment to heal itself and reduce the pollution to some extent. Along with this, we will look after the effect of this virus on other countries and how it has affected the environmental status of those countries. A comparative study of the pollution will be done with the help of graphs and charts as well. A Study on the changes occurred in the ozone layer due to this environment change will also be dealt with. The researchers will also examine how far this control of the pollution will help and sustain.

Current World Environment

Brayan Sanchez

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has emerged as the latest and serious public health threat throughout the world. In the absence of prevention and rehabilitation interventions, different countries have implemented shutdown and/or lockout policies to monitor the transmission of the epidemic, resulting of a significant reduction in anthropogenic activities. As a result, this kind of phenomenon is helped to inhibit the environmental degradation activity by reducing various pollutants from the air, water and soil. This condition provided ‘a once-in-a-lifetime’ chance for nature to evolve and recover. This paper discusses the nature of which in terms of its beneficial effect on water, air, the ozone layer, and waste deposition. Finally, the article also presents certain suggestive measures by highlighting the role of government, educational institutes, and a person as a whole in the sustenance of nature under pandemic. Based on the reported effect of the pandemic on the environment, it...

Environment, Development and Sustainability

Mohammad mahdi Emamjomeh

Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• MyU : For Students, Faculty, and Staff

Fall 2024 CSCI Special Topics Courses

Cloud computing.

Meeting Time: 09:45 AM‑11:00 AM TTh  Instructor: Ali Anwar Course Description: Cloud computing serves many large-scale applications ranging from search engines like Google to social networking websites like Facebook to online stores like Amazon. More recently, cloud computing has emerged as an essential technology to enable emerging fields such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and Machine Learning. The exponential growth of data availability and demands for security and speed has made the cloud computing paradigm necessary for reliable, financially economical, and scalable computation. The dynamicity and flexibility of Cloud computing have opened up many new forms of deploying applications on infrastructure that cloud service providers offer, such as renting of computation resources and serverless computing.    This course will cover the fundamentals of cloud services management and cloud software development, including but not limited to design patterns, application programming interfaces, and underlying middleware technologies. More specifically, we will cover the topics of cloud computing service models, data centers resource management, task scheduling, resource virtualization, SLAs, cloud security, software defined networks and storage, cloud storage, and programming models. We will also discuss data center design and management strategies, which enable the economic and technological benefits of cloud computing. Lastly, we will study cloud storage concepts like data distribution, durability, consistency, and redundancy. Registration Prerequisites: CS upper div, CompE upper div., EE upper div., EE grad, ITI upper div., Univ. honors student, or dept. permission; no cr for grads in CSci. Complete the following Google form to request a permission number from the instructor ( https://forms.gle/6BvbUwEkBK41tPJ17 ).

CSCI 5980/8980 

Machine learning for healthcare: concepts and applications.

Meeting Time: 11:15 AM‑12:30 PM TTh  Instructor: Yogatheesan Varatharajah Course Description: Machine Learning is transforming healthcare. This course will introduce students to a range of healthcare problems that can be tackled using machine learning, different health data modalities, relevant machine learning paradigms, and the unique challenges presented by healthcare applications. Applications we will cover include risk stratification, disease progression modeling, precision medicine, diagnosis, prognosis, subtype discovery, and improving clinical workflows. We will also cover research topics such as explainability, causality, trust, robustness, and fairness.

Registration Prerequisites: CSCI 5521 or equivalent. Complete the following Google form to request a permission number from the instructor ( https://forms.gle/z8X9pVZfCWMpQQ6o6  ).

Visualization with AI

Meeting Time: 04:00 PM‑05:15 PM TTh  Instructor: Qianwen Wang Course Description: This course aims to investigate how visualization techniques and AI technologies work together to enhance understanding, insights, or outcomes.

This is a seminar style course consisting of lectures, paper presentation, and interactive discussion of the selected papers. Students will also work on a group project where they propose a research idea, survey related studies, and present initial results.

This course will cover the application of visualization to better understand AI models and data, and the use of AI to improve visualization processes. Readings for the course cover papers from the top venues of AI, Visualization, and HCI, topics including AI explainability, reliability, and Human-AI collaboration.    This course is designed for PhD students, Masters students, and advanced undergraduates who want to dig into research.

Registration Prerequisites: Complete the following Google form to request a permission number from the instructor ( https://forms.gle/YTF5EZFUbQRJhHBYA  ). Although the class is primarily intended for PhD students, motivated juniors/seniors and MS students who are interested in this topic are welcome to apply, ensuring they detail their qualifications for the course.

Visualizations for Intelligent AR Systems

Meeting Time: 04:00 PM‑05:15 PM MW  Instructor: Zhu-Tian Chen Course Description: This course aims to explore the role of Data Visualization as a pivotal interface for enhancing human-data and human-AI interactions within Augmented Reality (AR) systems, thereby transforming a broad spectrum of activities in both professional and daily contexts. Structured as a seminar, the course consists of two main components: the theoretical and conceptual foundations delivered through lectures, paper readings, and discussions; and the hands-on experience gained through small assignments and group projects. This class is designed to be highly interactive, and AR devices will be provided to facilitate hands-on learning.    Participants will have the opportunity to experience AR systems, develop cutting-edge AR interfaces, explore AI integration, and apply human-centric design principles. The course is designed to advance students' technical skills in AR and AI, as well as their understanding of how these technologies can be leveraged to enrich human experiences across various domains. Students will be encouraged to create innovative projects with the potential for submission to research conferences.

Registration Prerequisites: Complete the following Google form to request a permission number from the instructor ( https://forms.gle/Y81FGaJivoqMQYtq5 ). Students are expected to have a solid foundation in either data visualization, computer graphics, computer vision, or HCI. Having expertise in all would be perfect! However, a robust interest and eagerness to delve into these subjects can be equally valuable, even though it means you need to learn some basic concepts independently.

Sustainable Computing: A Systems View

Meeting Time: 09:45 AM‑11:00 AM  Instructor: Abhishek Chandra Course Description: In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the pervasiveness, scale, and distribution of computing infrastructure: ranging from cloud, HPC systems, and data centers to edge computing and pervasive computing in the form of micro-data centers, mobile phones, sensors, and IoT devices embedded in the environment around us. The growing amount of computing, storage, and networking demand leads to increased energy usage, carbon emissions, and natural resource consumption. To reduce their environmental impact, there is a growing need to make computing systems sustainable. In this course, we will examine sustainable computing from a systems perspective. We will examine a number of questions:   • How can we design and build sustainable computing systems?   • How can we manage resources efficiently?   • What system software and algorithms can reduce computational needs?    Topics of interest would include:   • Sustainable system design and architectures   • Sustainability-aware systems software and management   • Sustainability in large-scale distributed computing (clouds, data centers, HPC)   • Sustainability in dispersed computing (edge, mobile computing, sensors/IoT)

Registration Prerequisites: This course is targeted towards students with a strong interest in computer systems (Operating Systems, Distributed Systems, Networking, Databases, etc.). Background in Operating Systems (Equivalent of CSCI 5103) and basic understanding of Computer Networking (Equivalent of CSCI 4211) is required.

• Future undergraduate students
• Future transfer students
• Future graduate students
• Future international students
• Diversity and Inclusion Opportunities
• Learn abroad
• Living Learning Communities
• Mentor programs
• Programs for women
• Student groups
• Visit, Apply & Next Steps
• Information for current students
• Departments and majors overview
• Departments
• Undergraduate majors
• Graduate programs
• Integrated Degree Programs
• Additional degree-granting programs
• Online learning
• Academic Advising overview
• Academic Advising FAQ
• Academic Advising Blog
• Appointments and drop-ins
• Academic support
• Commencement
• Four-year plans
• Honors advising
• Policies, procedures, and forms
• Career Services overview
• Resumes and cover letters
• Jobs and internships
• Interviews and job offers
• CSE Career Fair
• Major and career exploration
• Graduate school
• Collegiate Life overview
• Scholarships
• Diversity & Inclusivity Alliance
• Anderson Student Innovation Labs
• Information for alumni
• Get engaged with CSE
• Upcoming events
• CSE Alumni Society Board
• Alumni volunteer interest form
• Golden Medallion Society Reunion
• 50-Year Reunion
• Alumni honors and awards
• Outstanding Achievement
• Alumni Service
• Distinguished Leadership
• Honorary Doctorate Degrees
• Nobel Laureates
• Alumni resources
• Alumni career resources
• Alumni news outlets
• CSE branded clothing
• International alumni resources
• Inventing Tomorrow magazine
• Update your info
• CSE giving overview
• Why give to CSE?
• College priorities
• Give online now
• External relations
• Giving priorities
• Donor stories
• Impact of giving
• Ways to give to CSE
• Matching gifts
• CSE directories
• Invest in your company and the future
• Recruit our students
• Connect with researchers
• K-12 initiatives
• Diversity initiatives
• Research news
• Give to CSE
• CSE priorities
• Corporate relations
• Information for faculty and staff
• Administrative offices overview
• Office of the Dean
• Academic affairs
• Finance and Operations
• Communications
• Human resources
• Undergraduate programs and student services
• CSE Committees
• CSE policies overview
• Academic policies
• Faculty hiring and tenure policies
• Finance policies and information
• Graduate education policies
• Human resources policies
• Research policies
• Research overview
• Research centers and facilities
• Research proposal submission process
• Research safety
• Award-winning CSE faculty
• National academies
• University awards
• Honorary professorships
• Collegiate awards
• Other CSE honors and awards
• Staff awards
• Performance Management Process
• Work. With Flexibility in CSE
• K-12 outreach overview
• Summer camps
• Outreach events
• Enrichment programs
• Field trips and tours
• CSE K-12 Virtual Classroom Resources
• Educator development
• Sponsor an event

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Elsevier - PMC COVID-19 Collection

Impact of COVID-19 and lockdown on mental health of children and adolescents: A narrative review with recommendations ☆

Shweta singh.

a Additional Professor, Department of Psychiatry, KGMU Lucknow. India

Deblina Roy

b Psychiatric Nursing, Department of Psychiatry, King George's Medical University, Lucknow, India

Krittika Sinha

c Department of Psychiatry, King George's Medical University, Lucknow, India

Sheeba Parveen

Ginni sharma, gunjan joshi, associated data.

COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown has brought about a sense of fear and anxiety around the globe. This phenomenon has led to short term as well as long term psychosocial and mental health implications for children and adolescents. The quality and magnitude of impact on minors is determined by many vulnerability factors like developmental age, educational status, pre-existing mental health condition, being economically underprivileged or being quarantined due to infection or fear of infection.

This paper is aimed at narratively reviewing various articles related to mental-health aspects of children and adolescents impacted by COVID-19 pandemic and enforcement of nationwide or regional lockdowns to prevent further spread of infection.

Methodology

We conducted a review and collected articles and advisories on mental health aspects of children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. We selected articles and thematically organized them. We put up their major findings under the thematic areas of impact on young children, school and college going students, children and adolescents with mental health challenges, economically underprivileged children, impact due to quarantine and separation from parents and the advisories of international organizations. We have also provided recommendations to the above.

There is a pressing need for planning longitudinal and developmental studies, and implementing evidence based elaborative plan of action to cater to the psycho social and mental health needs of the vulnerable children and adolescents during pandemic as well as post pandemic. There is a need to ameliorate children and adolescents’ access to mental health support services geared towards providing measures for developing healthy coping mechanisms during the current crisis. For this innovative child and adolescent mental health policies policies with direct and digital collaborative networks of psychiatrists, psychologists, paediatricians, and community volunteers are deemed necessary.

1. Introduction

There are more than 2.2 billion children in the world who constitute approximately 28% of the world's population. Those aged between 10 to 19 years make up 16 % of the world's population ( UNICEF, 2019 ). COVID-19 has impacted the lives of people around the world including children and adolescents in an unprecedented manner. Throughout the world, an essential modus of prevention from COVID- 19 infection has been isolation and social distancing strategies to protect from the risk of infection ( Shen et al., 2020 ). On these grounds, since January, 2020, various countries started implementing regional and national containment measures or lockdowns. In this backdrop one of the principal measures taken during lockdown has been closure of schools, educational institutes and activity areas. These inexorable circumstances which are beyond normal experience, lead to stress, anxiety and a feeling of helplessness in all.

It has been indicated that compared to adults, this pandemic may continue to have increased long term adverse consequences on children and adolescents ( Shen et al., 2020 ). The nature and extent of impact on this age group depend on many vulnerability factors such as the developmental age, current educational status, having special needs, pre-existing mental health condition, being economically under privileged and child/ parent being quarantined due to infection or fear of infection. The following sections discuss about findings of studies on mental-health aspects of children and adolescents impacted by COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns being implemented at national or regional levels to prevent further spread of infection.

2. Material and methods

We searched the electronic data bases of MEDLINE through PubMed, Cochrane Library, Science-direct and Google Scholar databases, from January,2020 till June,2020. We carried out the search with the following methods like, MeSH or free text terms and Boolean operators were employed for PubMed; COVID-19 and Children [All Fields] OR (Children and COVID-19 effects [Terms] OR & Psychological effects of COVID-19 on children &Quot;[All Fields] OR (&Quot; COVID effects on children &Quot;[All Fields] AND &quot; &Quot;[All Fields]) OR effects on Children of COVID-19 &quot; Psychological effects of COVID, Children &quot;[All Fields]) OR (&quot;COVID-19 and children &quot;[MeSH Terms] OR &quot; Psychological effects of COVID-19, Children &quot;[All Fields]. This search strategy and terms were modified for other databases as appropriate. The searches were done by five independent reviewers. A manual search was also conducted of the references of the related articles to gather information about the relevant studies. Initial PubMed search with the term with “ COVID-19 in children” showed only 12 results. Among these, only four articles were related to “Psychological effects of COVID in children”. Therefore in order to make the review more comprehensive and informative, we also included studies that reported the effect on older children and impact of COVID1-19 on their lives. This was done keeping in mind the varied terminologies used to describe the phenomenon of ‘Children and COVID-19”. After using the above strategy, our search showed 112 results. Only articles in English language peer reviewed journals were included. Grey literature such as conference proceedings were not included due to possibility of insufficient information. We included case studies and review articles and Advisories by the WHO (World Health Organization), APA (American Psychiatric Association) and NHS (National Health Services) and Government of India Ministry of Health. Based on these inclusion criteria we included 22 articles. Three independent authors participated in study selection and all authors reached a consensus on the studies to be included. Being a narrative review, we did not attempt computation of effect sizes or do a risk of bias assessment for included papers.

The studies included were categorized under eight headings divided in various thematic sections and discussed with studies and reports found. The data is qualitatively analysed and reported in the paper. A summary of the papers included in this narrative review is presented in Table 1 .

Articles on mental health and psycho-social aspects of COVID among children and adolescents.

2.1. Impact on young children

Stress starts showing its adverse effect on a child even before he or she is born. During stress, parents particularly pregnant mothers are in a psychologically vulnerable state to experience anxiety and depression which is biologically linked to the wellbeing of the foetus ( Biaggi et al., 2016 ; Kinsella and Monk, 2009 ). In young children and adolescents the pandemic and lockdown have a greater impact on emotional and social development compared to that in the grown-ups. In one of the preliminary studies during the on-going pandemic, it was found younger children (3-6years old) were more likely to manifest symptoms of clinginess and the fear of family members being infected than older children (6-18 years old). Whereas, the older children were more likely to experience inattention and were persistently inquiring regarding COVID-19. Although, severe psychological conditions of increased irritability, inattention and clinging behaviour were revealed by all children irrespective of their age groups ( Viner et al., 2020a ). Based on the questionnaires completed by the parents, findings reveal that children felt uncertain, fearful and isolated during current times. It was also shown that children experienced disturbed sleep, nightmares, poor appetite, agitation, inattention and separation related anxiety ( Jiao et al., 2020 ).

2.2. Impact on school and college going students

Globally, the pre-lockdown learning of children and adolescents predominantly involved one-to-one interaction with their mentors and peer groups. Unfortunately, the nationwide closures of schools and colleges have negatively impacted over 91% of the world's student population ( Lee, 2020 ). The home confinement of children and adolescents is associated with uncertainty and anxiety which is attributable to disruption in their education, physical activities and opportunities for socialization ( Jiao et al., 2020 ). Absence of structured setting of the school for a long duration result in disruption in routine, boredom and lack of innovative ideas for engaging in various academic and extracurricular activities. Some children have expressed lower levels of affect for not being able to play outdoors, not meeting friends and not engaging in the in-person school activities ( Lee, 2020 ; Liu et al., 2020 ; Zhai and Du, 2020 ). These children have become more clingy, attention seeking and more dependent on their parents due to the long term shift in their routine. It is presumed that children might resist going to school after the lockdown gets over and may face difficulty in establishing rapport with their mentors after the schools reopen. Consequently, the constraint of movement imposed on them can have a long term negative effect on their overall psychological wellbeing ( Lee, 2020 ).

A study found that older adolescents and youth are anxious regarding cancellation of examinations, exchange programs and academic events ( Lee, 2020 ). Current studies related to COVID-19 demonstrate that school shut downs in isolation  prevent about 2-4% additional deaths which is quite less if compared to usage of other measures of social distancing. Moreover, they suggest to the policy makers that other less disrupting social distancing strategies should be followed by schools if social distancing is recommended for a long duration ( Lee, 2020 ; Sahu, 2020 ; Viner et al., 2020a ). However, in current circumstances, it is controversial whether complete closure of school and colleges is warranted for a prolonged period.

It has been reported that panic buying in times of distress indicate an instinctual survival behaviour ( Arafat et al., 2020 ). In present pandemic era there has been a rise in the hoarding behaviour among the teenagers ( Oosterhoff et al., 2020a ). It is also found that among youth social distancing is viewed primarily as a social responsibility and it is followed more sincerely if motivated by prosocial reasons to prevent others from getting sick (Oosterhoff et al., 2020a). Further, due to prolonged confinement at home children's increased use of internet and social media predisposes them to use internet compulsively, access objectionable content and also increases their vulnerability for getting bullied or abused ( Cooper, 2020 ; UNICEF, 2020b ). Worst of all, during lockdown when schools, when legal and preventative services do not functioning fully, children are rarely in a position to report violence, abuse and harm if they themselves have abusive homes.

2.3. Impact on children and adolescents having special needs

There are about 1 in every 6 children within the age group of 2-8 years who have some or the other neurodevelopmental, behavioural or emotional difficulty ( CDC, 2019 ). These children with special needs [autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cerebral palsy, learning disability, developmental delays and other behavioural and emotional difficulties] encounter challenges during the current pandemic and lockdown ( CDC, 2019 ). They have intolerance for uncertainty and there is an aggravation in the symptoms due to the enforced restrictions and unfriendly environment which does not correspond with their regular routine. Also, they face difficulties in following instructions, understanding the complexity of the pandemic situation and doing their own work independently. With the closure of special schools and day care centres these children lack access to resource material, peer group interactions and opportunities of learning and developing important social and behavioural skills in due time may lead to regression to the past behavior as they lose anchor in life, as a result of this their symptoms could relapse ( Lee, 2020 ). These conditions also trigger outburst of temper tantrums, and conflict between parents and adolescents. Although prior to the pandemic, these children had been facing difficulties even while attending special schools, but in due course they had learnt to develop a schedule to adhere to for most of the time of the day ( APA, 2020 ; Cortese et al., 2020 ; UNICEF, 2020a ). To cater to these challenges, it is difficult for parents to handle the challenged children and adolescents on their own, as they lack professional expertise and they mostly relied on schools and therapists to help them out ( Dalton et al., 2020 ).

Since every disorder is different, every child has different needs to be met. The children with autism find it very difficult to adapt to the changing environment. They become agitated and exasperated when anything is rearranged or shifted from its existing setup. They might show an increase in their behavioral problems and acts of self-harm. It is a huge challenge for parents to handle autistic children due to lockdown. The suspension of speech therapy and occupational therapy sessions could have a negative impact on their skill development and the achievement of the next milestone, as it is difficult for them to learn through online sessions ( UNICEF, 2020a ). The children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), struggle to make meaning of what is going around them from the cues they get from their caregivers. It is difficult for them to remain confined to a place and not to touch things, which might infect them.  Due to being confined to one place the chances of their hyperactivity increases along with heightened impulses and it becomes difficult for the caregivers to engage these children in meaningful activities ( Cortese et al., 2020 ).

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) among the children and adolescents is estimated to be of 0.25%–4% among children and adolescents ( CDC, 2019 ). Children with OCD are suspected to be one of the most affected ones by this pandemic.  Due to obsessions and compulsions related to contamination, hoarding, and somatic preoccupation, they are expected to experience heightened distress. Cleanliness is one key protective measure against the spread of COVID-19. According to United Nations’ policy guidelines to fight the infection one has to be careful about washing their hands six times a day, and whenever they touch anything ( APA, 2020 ; United Nations, 2020 ). The lockdown, which has made the healthy population distressed about possessing enough food and prevention related resources like masks and sanitizers, has made it worse for people with hoarding disorder ( APA, 2020 ; Mukherjee et al., 2020 )

2.4. Impact of lockdown on underprivileged children

Social inequality has been associated with the risk of developing mental health challenges. The pandemic and lockdown world has experienced global economic turn-down which has directly worsened the pre-existing social inequality. In developing countries, with the imposed lockdown, the underprivileged children face acute deprivation of nutrition and overall protection. The prolonged period of stress could have a long term negative impact on their development. For instance, in India, which has the largest child population in the world with 472 million children, the lockdown has significantly impacted 40 million children from poor families. These include children working on farms, fields in rural areas, children of migrants and street children ( Dalton et al., 2020 ; Rosenthal et al., 2020 ). An increasing number of poor and street children now have no source of income, making them a high risk population to face abuse and mental health issues with greater vulnerability and exposure to unfavorable economic, social and environmental circumstances ( Birla, 2019 ).

A home represents a source of security and safety in most families. However, for the poor and the underprivileged it is just the opposite. With the restriction of movement due to lockdown, these children have increased risk of being exploited and become victims of violence and abuse ( Cooper, 2020 ; United Nations, 2020 ).  The Deputy Director of ‘CHILDLINE 1098’ India, announced that India saw a 50 per cent increase in the calls received on helpline for children since the lockdown began ( PTI, 2020 ). This increase in rate is alarming and has made an increasing number of child victims in their own homes.

During the time of lockdown an increasing number of poor families have no source of daily wages which lead to frustration and feelings of helplessness. By the reason of displacement, the frustration and family conflict may manifest itself in the form of violence towards children. This can make the child more vulnerable to depression, anxiety and suicide ( Jiao et al., 2020 ; Petito et al., 2020 ; Solantaus et al., 2020 ) School closure coupled with economic adversity may force children and adolescents into child labour. Likewise, children without parents or guardians are more prone to exploitation ( United Nations, 2020 ).

In order to cover up the loss of education during lockdown, many schools have offered distance learning or online courses to students. However, this opportunity is not available to underprivileged children as a result of which they face a lack of stimulation and have no access to online resource material to study. A study pointed out that in underprivileged families, in comparison to boys, girls have decreased access to gadgets, this may diminish their involvement in digital platforms of  education ( McQuillan and Neill, 2009 ). Due to this gender inequality, increasing number of girls are prone to bear the consequences of school dropouts once the lockdown is lifted ( Cooper, 2020 ; PTI, 2020 ).

2.5. Impact due to quarantine and separation from parents

COVID-19 infection is expressed differently in children and adolescents. Yet the incidents of infection in the minors have been reported worldwide, which result in children being quarantined. Moreover, in many cases a single parent or both the parents are infected and quarantined. In either condition children are separated from their parents. Many countries have laid down strict quarantine policies as a measure to fight COVID-19 pandemic. Such as in China several adults, adolescents and children have been put in complete isolation to control the spread of infection. Although quarantining measures are for the benefit of the community at large, its psychological effects cannot be ignored ( Liu et al., 2020 ). The children who are in isolation require special attention as these children might be at risk of developing mental health problems due to grief caused by of parental separation. As during the formative years of life, the role of parents is very crucial, any disruption in the form of isolation from parents can have long term effects of perceived attachment of the child. It is found that separation from the primary caregivers can make a child more vulnerable and can pose a threat to a child's mental health ( Cooper, 2020 ; Jiao et al., 2020 ; Liu et al., 2020 ). The children may develop feelings of sadness, anxiety, fear of death, fear of parents’ death and fear of being isolated in the hospital which may have a very detrimental effect on their psychological development ( APA, 2020 ; CDC, 2019 ; Dalton et al., 2020 ). Children have emotionally pent up feelings of distress which may turn inwards into emotional fear or outwards towards acting out behavior ( Liu et al., 2020 ). They might feel separated or alone as they have limited knowledge and level of maturity to understand the implications of the current pandemic situation in their limited world.

2.6. Advisories of international organizations

With the objective of universal prevention and mental health promotion, the International organizations and advisory bodies have issued various guidelines taking into account the mental health needs of children during the COVID-19. They have suggested parents to interact constructively with the children by communicating with them about the current pandemic, according to their maturity level and their ability to comprehend the crisis. Parents should plan their children's tasks one at a time, involve them in various home activities, educate them about following hygiene habits and social distancing, engage in indoor play and creative activities. In addition to these activities, adolescents are advised to be involved in household chores and understand their social responsibilities ( WHO, 2020b ) .  Interventions supervised by adults can help them in understanding their concerns. The activities of children and adolescents should include more structure in home schooling activities. Children should be encouraged to socialize with their friends and classmates through digital forums under adult supervision ( WHO, 2020a ).

The advisory committees have also provided guidelines for managing children with special needs and neurodevelopmental disorders ( UNICEF, 2020a , 2020b; WHO, 2020a ) . The children prone to risk for trauma and heightened anxiety. The children need early identification prompt management involving the parents and experts to prevent long term mental health morbidity.

2.7. Recommendations

It is imperative to plan strategies to enhance children and adolescent's access to mental health services during and after the current crisis. For this direct and digital collaborative network of various stakeholders is required. Recommendations for ensuring mental well-being of children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown and the role of parents, teachers, pediatricians, community volunteers, the health system and policy makers are being discussed. In addition a brief summary of the roles is given in Table 2 .

Mental health care of children and adolescents by various support systems.

2.8. Role of Parents

In the times of paramount stress and uncertainty, a secure family environment which the parents can provide is a strong protective factor ( Schofield et al., 2013 ). There is evidence to show that parental practices and coping measures affect the children's post disaster mental health ( Cobham et al., 2016 ). Parents need to respond to the needs of their children based on the developmental phase of the child is being discussed below:

2.9. Young children

• 1. Compared to adolescents, younger children demand  more attention  of their parents They need their parents’ physical presence and need to engage in more indoor play related activities with them. Parents should devote time to provide the child with undivided, positive attention and reassurance.
• 2. With the aim to  increase children's awareness about COVID 19,  it is crucial for parents to communicate with  young children in an age appropriate manner by using simple terminologies about COVID-19. Children need to be given fact based information with the help of presentations and video material provided by authorized international organizations like WHO and UNICEF or government resources which have been tailor made especially for children.
• 3. To  alleviate the anx iety of children regarding the current uncertain situation ( Wang et al., 2020 ), children's exposure to news should be limited and be through fact based neutral news channels only. The tabloid news should be avoided by all means.
• 4. The parents are recommended to  model appropriate preventive measures and coping mechanisms  which the family as a team and children individually are motivated to follow. For this use of reminders through phone may also be used.
• 5. Efforts should be made so that a  consistent routine is  followed by the child, with enough opportunities to play, read, rest and engage in physical activity. It is recommended that family plays board games and engages in indoor sports activities with the child to avoid longer durations of video games. Parents should ensure that particularly the bedtime of a child is consistent. It is possible that before the bed time children may need some more time and attention.
• 6. Focus should be on the  ‘good behaviour’  more than ‘bad behaviour’ of a child. Parents must tell more about options regarding what to do rather than what  not to do. Provide more praise and social reinforcements to children compared to material reinforcements.
• 7. It is quite possible that parents observe some amount of change in the behavior in children during the times of a pandemic. If the  behavior problems  are minor and not harmful for children and others, parents should consider ignoring and stop paying attention to them, this may lead to decrease in the recurrence in behavior and would also help in giving space to each other.

2.10. Adolescents

Apart from areas discussed above, certain areas which need especial focus in the phase of adolescence, are being described below:

• 1. Parents are the best ‘role model’  for children and home is practically the best place to learn the ‘life skills’. Hence, this is the best time for parents to model the most important life skills i.e. coping with stress, coping with emotions, and problem-solving with their children. Due to the cancellation of exams handle disappointments and uncertainties more positively. For each disappointment and uncertainty, there should be an alternative. Moreover, to inculcate a sense of control in adolescents whenever possible, parents can include adolescents in the decision-making process especially in matters related to them.
• 2. Adolescents are expected to have better  knowledge about COVID 19  compared to young children. Therefore, communication has to be more open and non-directive. On the other hand, judgmental statements about adolescents should be avoided.
• 3. This is an opportunity for older children to  learn responsibility, accountability, involvement, and collaboration.  By taking some responsibilities at home on an everyday basis, for instance maintenance of their belongings and utility items. They can learn some of the skills including cooking, managing money matters, learning first aid, organizing their room, contributing to managing chores like laundry, cleaning and cooking.
• 4. Excessive internet  use e.g. internet surfing related to COVID-19 should be avoided as it results in anxiety. Similarly, excessive and irresponsible use of social media or internet gaming should be cautioned against. Negotiations with adolescents to limit their time and internet-based activities are recommended. More non-gadget related in door activities and games are to be encouraged.
• 5. In such conditions taking up  creative pursuits  like art, music, dance and others can help to manage mental health and well-being for everyone. Inculcating self-driven reading by making them select books of their choice and discussing about them helps in adolescent development.
• 6. Adolescence is a phase of enthusiasm and risk-taking, hence some may feel invincible and  try not to follow guidelines  related to distancing and personal hygiene. This has to be addressed with adolescents assertively.
• 7. It is crucial to value the  peer support system  of the adolescents. Parents should encourage adolescents who are introverts to keep in touch with their peers and communicate with them about their feelings and common problems they face. This may also lead a way for appropriate problem-solving.
• 8. It is advised to  parents to take care of their own mental health  needs and try to cope with stress adaptively.

2.11. Role of school teachers/school counselors

In the present times when most schools and colleges are organizing online academic activities, teachers are in regular touch with students, and therefore are in a position to play a critical role in the promotion of psychological well being among youngsters. Their role during COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown are as follows:

• 1. Teachers can devote some time related to  educating about COVID-19  and preventive health behavior by using the guidelines of the international organizations, according to the maturity level of the students. They can explain to the students about the need to act with responsibility during the current pandemic. They can model and enact through their behavior the preventive measures.
• 2. They can  conduct creative online  academic and non-academic sessions by making their classes more interactive, engaging students in the form of quizzes, puzzles, small competitions, and giving more creative home assignments to break the monotony of the online classes. Standard educational material can be used. For instance, UNESCO has offered many online educational sources (UNESCO, 2020)
• 3. Teachers have a role to play in the  promotion of mental health among students . They can discuss what is wellbeing and how it is important for students. They can assist in teaching simple exercises, including deep breathing, muscle relaxation, distraction, and positive self -talk. Virtual workshops can be conducted in which ‘life skills’ related to coping in stress can be in focus by using more practical examples.
• 4. Teachers can make children understand the importance of  prosocial behavior  and the importance of human virtues like empathy and patience among others. This can help them to understand their role in the society and understand how social distancing is not equivalent to emotional distancing.
• 5. The teachers need to  interact with parents  online or through phone regarding feedback about students and their mental health. Because of the digital divide they can call parents, make their contact available to parents and devote a time slot when they can be available to parents to communicate.
• 6. They can serve as a doorway for  identification and referral to specialty mental health providers . They have a role act as a catalyst between the parent based on their interaction with students and findings of screening tools. If they observe any problem in the child, they can talk to parents and refer children and adolescents to mental health professionals.
• 7. With the support of school authorities, teachers need to make arrangements to ensure that the  reading material  related academics and life skills is made available to the underprivileged children  who do not have access to the internet. If possible arrangements can be made for them to use internet.

2.12. Role of pediatricians

During a child's formative years when their personalities are shaped,  parents are in regular  touch with pediatricians, as parents reach out to their local pediatricians whenever they encounter health/ behavioral complaints associated with their children. Parents expect answers from them as they trust them. Hence a pediatrician's role is paramount in promoting mental health, developing resilience, recognizing mental health problems, and coordinate with the mental health care providers when it comes to mental health care of children. In the backdrop of COVID 19 specific roles of  pediatricians are enlisted below:

• 1. They must be equipped with a  teleconsultation  facility and must use it as much as possible. They must generously keep the option open for tele or online consultation for parents.
• 2. They should  educate parents  about the developmental needs of the children in various phases of childhood and also disseminate simple and specific mental health promotion reading material online or through handouts to parents.
• 3. Paediatrician is in a position to  recognize the physical manifestations  of stress and emotional health problems in children e.g. the various internalization and externalizing conditions, for instance, aches, pains, or acts of self-harm.
• 4. They also need to ask about the relevant information related to various  predisposing factors associated with the child  i.e. temperament, functioning, adjustment in school, peer group, routine and general activities of the child.
• 5. Various  psychosocial and medical determinants and stressors  of mental health like family history, economic stressors, family environment, neighborhood, etc. which may lead to underlying problems can be assessed.
• 6. Mental health check-ups  should be conducted with the help of brief standardized screening tools by which they can easily screen various mental health problems in children especially including ADHD, autism, anxiety disorders, and depression.
• 7. They need to  develop stronger networks  and build partnerships with mental health providers, for instance, clinical psychologists, child psychologists, and psychiatrists. They should work in collaboration with them and refer children to them as and when the need arises for special mental health care. There is a need to develop online CMEs with the help of partnerships with Psychologists.

2.13. Mental healthcare workers

During times of paramount stress when the mental health of children and adolescents around the globe is directly or indirectly impacted, the role of mental health care workers, including clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychiatric social workers is crucial keeping in mind their professional responsibilities and social challenges.

• 1. There is a need for  ‘tele mental health compatibility’  in place of in-person assessments and interventions. The objective of the mental health care providers should be to reach out to the general public at large. They need to work towards the production and dissemination of audio-video material related to healthy parenting, mental health awareness, reduction of stigma, practice mental health hygiene, promote health behavior, and psycho-educational material associated with the mental health care of children and adolescents.
• 2. There is an urgent requirement of  coordinated and innovative mental health  care delivery. For this, coordination with people who are playing a key role in the mental health care of children and adolescents e.g. parents, pediatricians, teachers, school counselors, community volunteers, NGOs, police, etc. should be involved and oriented about the mental health condition and briefly trained in providing basic psychological support and psychological first aid.
• 3. Providing online orientation for teachers  or the creation of material for school teachers and school counselors related to mental health promotion, life skill training, coordination with parents, and referral to mental health care professionals.
• 4. Conducting brief online training of  pediatricians  for mental health screening of vulnerable children, assessment of psychosocial factors, providing inputs relevant for the management of mild stress and anxiety in children, and referring to mental health care professionals is included.
• 5. Creating material for  special schools  for mental health promotion and management of behavior problems using contingency management, providing psychological first aid, referring to mental health care professionals would be required.
• 6. Create material for  community volunteers  for identification of high-risk children, e.g. underprivileged children, children of migrants, provide psychological first aid, and coordinate with caregivers and mental health care professionals.
• 7. Mental health care workers should focus on the construction and administration of  online questionnaires  to detect psychological distress and other stress symptoms in children if they or their parents are quarantined and also provide extra ad hoc supportive interventions.
• 8. Clinical Psychologists should design and implement tele based or in-person  short term focused behavioral interventions  for the management of known conditions in children [e.g. ADHD, autism, intellectual disabilities] mostly parent-focused, initiated using digital and electronic medium. The pathological consequences of crisis e.g. PTSD, depression, substance abuse in adolescents should also be addressed on similar lines. There is a requirement for creative solutions, often on a case-by-case basis.
• 9. Psychiatrists need to carefully weigh  the risks and benefits of psychotropic medications  for children and adolescents e.g. anti-depressants, anxiolytics, anticonvulsants, etc., and if possible, arranging medicines for those who cannot arrange.
• 10. There is a need for mental health care workers carry out longitudinal  and developmental studies  on short term and long term mental health impact of the COVID 19 pandemic and lock down on children and adolescents.

2.14. Health system and policy makers

It has been recognized by the world that the traditional pre-COVID-19 models and policies for children and adolescents' mental health are no longer applicable during COVID 19 era. Hence, the need is felt for the transformation of policies that can take into account not only lock down duration but also times following the lockdown. The following recommendations may be useful for guiding the functioning of the health system and policy making related to mental health care  of children and adolescents :

• 1. The focus of the health care system should be prevention, promotion, and treatment according to the  public mental health system  to meet population- mental health needs of the general population at large.
• 2. No single umbrella policy would be able to take into account various mental health aspects of children and adolescents dwelling in different environments. Hence the health system and policies should be based on  contextual parameters  that are different for each country or region depending on the degree of infection and the phase of infection they are in.
• 3. Since there is a dearth of mental health care workers in most developing countries. There is a need for  inclusive approaches  in which health care workers e.g. pediatricians, general physicians, schools, non-governmental organizations sectors are involved. Moreover, brief basic mental health care training for these arms should be planned.
• 4. Separate rules for the rural, suburban, and concrete domiciles in growing countries spotting the variance among college districts, which includes city, suburban, and rural districts.
• 5. It is critically important to develop  flexible strategies  that can be revised and adapted to school and throughout the community and done with close communication with state and/or local public health authorities.
• 6. Policies should be formulated taking into account the  developmental stage of the child  e.g. preschoolers, school age, adolescents.
• 7. There is a need for full translation dominant therapy approaches to  telehealth compatibility, but clear rules and regulations regarding the same are mandatory.
• 8. It should be ensured that the vulnerable sections of the society (medically prone, underprivileged, having developmental challenges, or having disabilities) are not neglected.
• 9. The  school re-entry policies  should be defined considering strict implimentation of key principles of social distancing and hygiene. This should be done keeping in mind the importance of in-person learning for children in the school set up.
• 10. Ensure adequate  fund allocation  and proper monitoring and utilization of the funds for policy implementation.

2.15. Critical appraisal of the studies included

The studies included in the review were collected after setting criteria to have a comprehensive view of the global vision in managing the crisis of children in the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of the studies included in the review were based on online self-reports( Bhat et al., 2020 ; Jiao et al., 2020 ; Oosterhoff et al., 2020b ). The adults and older children were the respondents of the study( Lee, 2020 ; Liu et al., 2020 ; Viner et al., 2020b ; Wang et al., 2020 ).  The studies are mainly carried out in the developed nations and the East Asian countries. Studies have reported the concerns may not be generalizable throughout the globe. There are variations in the number of samples as well, thus they make it difficult to generalize the findings of their study alone.

The cross sectional studies are useful in understanding the immediate or short term impact apparent at a certain point of time. However the limitations of these cross sectional studies are that these studies cannot conclude about the long term impact of COVID-19, given that certain pre-existing vulnerabilities, high risk factors and stressors could be multiple, ongoing or recurrent and also the manner through which they work may vary. Consequently, there is a pressing need for carrying out longitudinal and developmental studies to be able to apprehend multiple layers of dynamic determinants playing role during this time of global crisis ( Holmes et al., 2020 ).The literature suggests the need for evidence based elaborative strategies and plan of action to cater to the mental health needs of children and adolescents during the period of pandemic ( Wade et al., 2020 ).

3. Limitations

The review articles for this review have been selected during the time of global lockdown, where the issues and challenges were new and the global crisis was at peak times. In our review, we were unable to track the measures of management targeted towards the children. The strategies reported in the studies were isolated to geopolitical conditions. The recommendations provided in this review can be modified to suit the needs of the places according to their local resources and geopolitical scenarios. Due to strict selection criteria and the short period of data collection and the only use of electronic databases for our research, there is a possibility of missing studies relevant to the care of children and adolescents.

4. Conclusion

Although the rate of COVID-19 infection among young children and adolescents is low, the stress confronted by them poses their condition as highly vulnerable. Many cross-sectional studies have been conducted to analyze the impact of COVID-19 and lock down on children and youth. The results of these studies show that the nature and extent of this impact depend on several vulnerability factors such as the developmental age, educational status, pre-existing mental health condition, being economically underprivileged or being quarantined due to infection /fear of infection. Studies show that young children show more clinginess, disturbed sleep, nightmares, poor appetite, inattentiveness, and significant separation problems.

The containment measures like school and activity centers closures for long periods together expose the children and youth to the debilitating effects on educational, psychological, and developmental attainment as they experience loneliness, anxiety, and uncertainty. Compulsive use of internet gaming and social media puts them at higher risk. Children and adolescents with mental health conditions are not used to variation in the environment. Hence there could be an exacerbation in symptoms and behavioral problems.

The children who receive training, therapy, and other treatments are at high risk of being derailed from therapy and special educations. Economically underprivileged children are particularly prone to exploitation and abuse. Children quarantined are at high risk for developing higher risk for mental health-related challenges.

There is a need to ameliorate children and adolescent's access to mental health services by using both face to face as well as digital platforms. For this collaborative network of parents, psychiatrists, psychologists, pediatricians, community volunteers, and NGOs are required. There is a need for ‘tele mental health compatibility’ and be accessible to the public at large. This would be crucial to prevent during and post-pandemic mental challenges in the most vulnerable and underprivileged section of the society. The focal point of the health care system and policymaking should be prevention, promotion, and interventions corresponding to the public mental health system to meet the mental health needs of the population at large by taking the regional contextual parameters into account.

Disclosure of prior presentation of study data

This paper has not been submitted in full or part in any conference and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

Financial disclosure

This is a completely researcher initiated study without any external funding whatsoever.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Shweta Singh: Writing - review & editing, Software, Validation, Supervision, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Conceptualization, Methodology. Deblina Roy: Validation, Visualization, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Software. Krittika Sinha: Visualization, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft. Sheeba Parveen: Visualization, Investigation. Ginni Sharma: Visualization, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft. Gunjan Joshi: Visualization, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft.

Declaration of Competing Interest

There is no known conflict of interest.The authors whose names are listed below certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest (such as honoraria; educational grants, participation in spakers’ bureaus arrangements, consultancies, memberships, stock ownerships, or other equity interest, or expert testimony and patent licencing arangements) or non financial interests such as ( personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs)in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. All the authors confirm that, all of them has contributed in the conception of design; analysis, interpretation of data; drafting the article; critically revisiting the article for important intellectual inputs; and approval of the final version. This paper has not been submitted elsewhere or is under review at another journal or publishing venue. The authors have no affiliation with any organization, with a direct or indirect financial interest in the subject matter discussed in the manuscript.

Acknowldegment

We would like to Acknowldge the efforts of Mrs. Meenakshi Seth and Mr. Prakhar Bhanu, who were involved in improving the language of the manuscript. Additionally the authors are gratefull to the CORONA Warriers i.e. the Health Care Workers for their selfless and tremendous service to the mankind.

☆ This paper is aimed at reviewing articles related to mental-health aspects of children and adolescents impacted by COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. There is a need to carry out longitudinal and developmental studies and plan strategies to enhance children's and adolescent's access to mental health services during and after the current crisis. For this direct and digital collaborative network of psychiatrists, psychologists, pediatricians, and community volunteers are of vital importance.

Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113429 .

Appendix. Supplementary materials