The COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on the environment

Alessio Facciolà; Pasqualina Laganà; Gabriella Caruso

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2021.111648

The COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on the environment

Environ Res. 2021 Oct:201:111648. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2021.111648. Epub 2021 Jul 7.

Authors

Alessio Facciolà¹, Pasqualina Laganà², Gabriella Caruso³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical and Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging, University of Messina, Italy.
² Department of Biomedical and Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging, University of Messina, Italy. Electronic address: plagana@unime.it.
³ Institute of Polar Sciences (ISP), National Research Council (CNR), Messina, Italy.

Abstract

The emerging threat posed by COVID-19 pandemic has strongly modified our lifestyle, making urgent to re-consider the humans-environment relationships and stimulating towards more sustainable choices in our daily behavior. Scientific evidences showed that the onset of new viral pathogens with a high epidemic-pandemic potential is often the result of complex interactions between animals, humans and environment. In this context, the interest of the scientific community has also been attracted towards the potential interactions of SARS-CoV-2 with environmental compartments. Many issues, ranging from the epidemiology and persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in water bodies to the potential implications of lockdown measures on environmental quality status are here reviewed, with a special reference to marine ecosystems. Due to current sanitary emergence, the relevance of pilot studies regarding the interactions between SARS-CoV-2 spread and the direct and indirect environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, that are still a matter of scientific debate, is underlined.

Keywords: COVID-19; Environment; Impacts; Marine biota; Marine ecosystems.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Animals
COVID-19*
Communicable Disease Control
Ecosystem
Humans
Pandemics*
SARS-CoV-2