In an effort to reduce the spread of Covid-19, European and Asian countries initiated lockdowns and closed their borders to air travel. Covid-19 quarantines and travel ban shut down factories and public transportation while also forcing citizens to stay home, which in turn reduced the emission of harmful gases from industrial plants and automobiles. The European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite showed a significant drop in levels of nitrogen oxide and greenhouse gases in China, South Korea, Italy, United Kingdom and other EU countries. Toxic gases like nitrogen oxide play a major role in the air quality, as it causes inflammation in the human respiratory system and aggravates respiratory illness, such as asthma. Scientists theorized that the air quality improvement, even for a short 2-month span, might just have saved more than 70,000 lives in heavily polluted Chinese cities.
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