Air Quality and Environment Research Group, Faculty of Ocean Engineering Technology and Informatics, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus 21030, Malaysia.
Faculty of Science and Marine Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus 21030, Malaysia.
Sci Total Environ. 2020 Aug 10;729:139022. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139022. Epub 2020 Apr 27.
An outbreak of respiratory illness which is proven to be infected by a 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) officially named as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first detected in Wuhan, China and has spread rapidly in other parts of China as well as other countries around the world, including Malaysia. The first case in Malaysia was identified on 25 January 2020 and the number of cases continue to rise since March 2020. Therefore, 2020 Malaysia Movement Control Order (MCO) was implemented with the aim to isolate the source of the COVID-19 outbreak. As a result, there were fewer number of motor vehicles on the road and the operation of industries was suspended, ergo reducing emissions of hazardous air pollutants in the atmosphere. We had acquired the Air Pollutant Index (API) data from the Department of Environment Malaysia on hourly basis before and during the MCO with the aim to track the changes of fine particulate matter (PM) at 68 air quality monitoring stations. It was found that the PM concentrations showed a high reduction of up to 58.4% during the MCO. Several red zone areas (>41 confirmed COVID-19 cases) had also reduced of up to 28.3% in the PM concentrations variation. The reduction did not solely depend on MCO, thus the researchers suggest a further study considering the influencing factors that need to be adhered to in the future.
一种经证实由 2019 年新型冠状病毒（2019-nCoV）感染引发的呼吸道疾病疫情，正式命名为 2019 冠状病毒病（COVID-19），最初在中国武汉被发现，此后在中国其他地区以及包括马来西亚在内的世界其他国家迅速蔓延。马来西亚首例病例于 2020 年 1 月 25 日确诊，自 2020 年 3 月以来，病例数量持续上升。因此，2020 年马来西亚实施了行动管制令（MCO），目的是隔离 COVID-19 疫情的源头。结果，路上的机动车辆数量减少，工业停产，因此减少了大气中危险空气污染物的排放。我们从马来西亚环境部获取了行动管制令实施前后每小时的空气污染指数（API）数据，目的是追踪 68 个空气质量监测站的细颗粒物（PM）的变化情况。结果发现，行动管制令期间 PM 浓度降低了高达 58.4%。几个红色区域（>41 例确诊 COVID-19 病例）的 PM 浓度变化也降低了高达 28.3%。这种降低不仅仅取决于行动管制令，因此研究人员建议在未来的研究中进一步考虑需要遵守的影响因素。
