Air quality status during 2020 Malaysia Movement Control Order (MCO) due to 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) pandemic
Date
2020
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
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 (PM2.5) at 68 air quality monitoring stations.
Description
Keywords
Coronavirus disease, Movement control order, Malaysia, Air pollutant index, Fine particulate matter
Citation
Abdullah, S., Mansor, A. A., Napi, N. N. L. M., Mansor, W. N. W., Ahmed, A. N., Ismail, M., & Ramly, Z. T. A. (2020). Air quality status during 2020 Malaysia Movement Control Order (MCO) due to 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) pandemic. Science of the Total Environment, 729, 139022.