Effects of COVID-19 lockdown phases in India: an atmospheric perspective

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. It was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei, China, and has resulted in an ongoing pandemic. As of 5 July 2020, more than 11.1 million cases have been reported across 188 countries and territories, resulting in more than 528,000 deaths. More than 6.03 million people have recovered. The entire world population currently faces enormous challenges (i.e., social, environmental, health, and economic) due to the impact of COVID-19. In this regard, the affected countries are now trying to slow down the virus's transmission through social-distancing, lockdowns, increasing the number of tests and treatment facilities. There have been four lockdowns (25 March 2020-31 May 2020), and two unlock periods (1 June-31 July 2020) in India. Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) has been analyzed using MODIS satellite data during various phases of lockdowns over India. With the implementation of lockdown steps, AOD values dropped significantly over various regions. A significant reduction in AOD over the North-Central regions (up to -50%) compared to the regions in the South or Northeast India. The AOD over these regions was significantly affected by the lock/unlock phases. It was also observed that there was a considerable buildup of AOD during the pre-lockdown period in the year 2020 as compared to the past two years.