engleski

There is something in the air: Investigating the beneficial effect of COVID-19 on global air quality

Not only does COVID-19 represent a public health emergency, but it has also become a global international economic crisis. Interventions to contain COVID-19, in the form of a lockdown, halting public transport and keeping people at home, have led to improvements in air quality. This paper investigates the beneficial effect of COVID­19 on global air quality which contributes to the reduction in the number of premature deaths. The results of the analysis, using cross-country panel regression analysis, and PPML and Tobit estimators, have shown that there is a negative correlation between major air pollutants and the number of COVID-19 cases, except in the case of O3. There is a beneficial effect of COVID­19 on the improvement in air quality and, consequently, 410, 727 fewer cases of premature deaths at the semi-annual global level due to indoor and outdoor air pollution. It appears that the number of averted premature deaths had exceeded the total number of deaths due to the COVID-19 disease by May 11, 2020, meaning that COVID-19 has saved more lives than it has taken. The limitations of the analysis are related to the uneven number of countries included in the analysis for each of the air pollutants and the inclusion of only 60 countries in the sample due to data unavailability. There are also limitations related to methodology concerning calculating both the total number of deaths due to the COVID-19 disease and the estimated average number of deaths due to air pollution. The results obtained from this paper can be important for economic and health policy-makers and the global community.

COVID­19 ; air quality ; beneficial effect ; PPML ; Tobit

nije evidentirano