Written by Trinity Torgersen (News Writer)
The coronavirus outbreak has forced thousands of people to be quarantined in their own homes. This has caused pollution to decrease, and the animal population to return to visible surroundings. The reason that pollution has begun to have a significant decrease is due to the fact that the virus is causing a large population to stay home, there is less traffic, and businesses that are big contributors are being shut down. Animals have also begun to reinhabit their homes and return to their natural surroundings, since there are no tourists or local action.
Cities across the United States have cut down on driving and traffic has fallen dramatically over the past few weeks from staying home. Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and Atlanta have especially dropped their rate of action on the road ways and show major decline. In Los Angeles traffic is seen to be seventy percent faster now that the virus occurred and in all of the cities less roadside trash has been reported. New York doesn’t rely as much on car travel but still managed to drop thirty six percent. Staying indoors has caused pollution to drop dramatically especially over the past week as every day activities have come to a pause.
Italy, along with other places the animal population has gone through many visually noticeable environmental changes within their areas. Over the years, Italy’s waterways became crowed with tourists and suffocated by pollution. Because of the quarantine it also benefited the waterways and they’ve started to clear up because of this. Animals like swans – and even dolphins -have been spotted in and around the Venice canals. These animals can be spotted in waterways near Burano, and Venice, which are areas, but have become much more populated with wild animals. In Nara, Japan deer roam around streets and subway stations, exploring what would usually be largely populated by people, but are now more open to the animals. Turkeys have also been making a huge showing throughout states and in cities like Oakland in playgrounds or parks.
Air, water, and traffic pollution is improving in many countries due to coronavirus quarantine temporarily shutting down industrial activity. In February in Wuhan, China the air quality and concentration of nitrogen dioxide began to reach dangerous levels. Nitrogen dioxide is produced from car engines, power plants and other industrial companies .They began to reach the red and orange which indicates the levels were critical . After the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread, the quality rose to blue. Scientists found that the Nitrogen Oxide levels have decreased around ten to thirty percent compared to what is normally observed in this time period. South Korea’s Nitrogen Oxide levels also began to drop, which the country has long struggled with clean air. Lastly, Italy’s air pollution along with Barcelona and Madrid also found positive change in the lack of pollution.
The Claw 