The European Union's space agency's earth-observation satellites have detected a significant reduction in the pollutant nitrogen dioxide, a byproduct of the use of diesel motors and other human activities, in northern Italy as the advance of the Covid-19 has led to drastic measures curtailing ordinary life.
The agency's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service reported today that with the "abrupt changes in activity levels" in northern Italy, it has tracked a "reduction trend" of nitrogen dioxide, or NO2, for the last four to five weeks.
So far, Italy has been the hardest hit country in Europe by the new coronavirus, and the Government has implemented a wide lockdown, encouraging its 62 million people to stay home unless it's absolutely necessary to go out.
Similar drops in pollutants were detected in China after the government there implemented widespread shutdowns to try and slow the spread of COVID-19.
