The Short-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Epidemic on Socio-Economic Activities in China Using OMI-NO2 Monitoring Results

Abstract

As an air pollutant closely related to urban traffic and heavy industrial capacity, the variation of NO2 (Nitrogen Dioxide) concentration can directly reflect the strength of socio-economic activities. Using the weekly average results of daily product synthesis of tropospheric NO2 column concentrations from OMI satellite inversion, a weekly-scale variation series of standardized socioeconomic activity index during the Spring Festival period of 2019-2021 is constructed. The results show that the Spring Festival holiday also suppresses socioeconomic activity in normal years, but the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic leads to an extended period of 2-3 weeks of weakened socioeconomic activity in China after the holiday, while the minimum value of socioeconomic activity intensity decreases by 0.12. Although socio-economic activity is significantly suppressed in the short term, the intensity of socio-economic activity rises steadily with the gradual resumption of work and production everywhere from the third week after the Spring Festival in China and has reached 60.91% of the highest level before the holiday in the seventh week after the holiday.