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      Unexpected air pollution with marked emission reductions during the COVID-19 outbreak in China

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          Abstract

          The absence of motor vehicle traffic and suspended manufacturing during the COVID-19 pandemic in China produced a unique experiment to assess the efficiency of air pollution mitigation. Up to 90% reduction of certain emissions during the city-lockdown period can be identified from satellite and ground-based observations. Unexpectedly, extreme particulate matter levels simultaneously occurred in northern China. Our synergistic observation analyses and model simulations show that anomalously high humidity promoted aerosol heterogeneous chemistry, along with stagnant airflow and uninterrupted emissions from power plants and petrochemical facilities, contributing to severe haze formation. Also, because of non-linear production chemistry and titration of ozone in winter, reduced nitrogen oxides resulted in ozone enhancement in urban areas, further increasing the atmospheric oxidizing capacity and facilitating secondary aerosol formation.

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          Coupling an Advanced Land Surface–Hydrology Model with the Penn State–NCAR MM5 Modeling System. Part I: Model Implementation and Sensitivity

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            Aerodynamic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 in two Wuhan hospitals

            The ongoing outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread rapidly on a global scale. Although it is clear that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is transmitted through human respiratory droplets and direct contact, the potential for aerosol transmission is poorly understood1-3. Here we investigated the aerodynamic nature of SARS-CoV-2 by measuring viral RNA in aerosols in different areas of two Wuhan hospitals during the outbreak of COVID-19 in February and March 2020. The concentration of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in aerosols that was detected in isolation wards and ventilated patient rooms was very low, but it was higher in the toilet areas used by the patients. Levels of airborne SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the most public areas was undetectable, except in two areas that were prone to crowding; this increase was possibly due to individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the crowd. We found that some medical staff areas initially had high concentrations of viral RNA with aerosol size distributions that showed peaks in the submicrometre and/or supermicrometre regions; however, these levels were reduced to undetectable levels after implementation of rigorous sanitization procedures. Although we have not established the infectivity of the virus detected in these hospital areas, we propose that SARS-CoV-2 may have the potential to be transmitted through aerosols. Our results indicate that room ventilation, open space, sanitization of protective apparel, and proper use and disinfection of toilet areas can effectively limit the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in aerosols. Future work should explore the infectivity of aerosolized virus.
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              Identifying airborne transmission as the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19

              Significance We have elucidated the transmission pathways of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by analyzing the trend and mitigation measures in the three epicenters. Our results show that the airborne transmission route is highly virulent and dominant for the spread of COVID-19. The mitigation measures are discernable from the trends of the pandemic. Our analysis reveals that the difference with and without mandated face covering represents the determinant in shaping the trends of the pandemic. This protective measure significantly reduces the number of infections. Other mitigation measures, such as social distancing implemented in the United States, are insufficient by themselves in protecting the public. Our work also highlights the necessity that sound science is essential in decision-making for the current and future public health pandemics.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Science
                Science
                SCIENCE
                Science (New York, N.y.)
                American Association for the Advancement of Science
                0036-8075
                1095-9203
                17 June 2020
                : eabb7431
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
                [2 ]State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China.
                [3 ]Key Lab of Aerosol Chemistry and Physics, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China.
                [4 ]Divisions of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
                Author notes
                [*]

                These authors contributed equally to this work.

                []Corresponding author. Email: yuan.wang@ 123456caltech.edu
                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6600-8270
                https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6657-8401
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1092-0615
                Article
                abb7431
                10.1126/science.abb7431
                7402623
                32554754
                3fd067d2-09ad-4b6f-810e-30fd74291d85
                Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 16 March 2020
                : 09 June 2020
                Funding
                Funded by: doi http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001, National Science Foundation;
                Award ID: AGS-1700727
                Funded by: doi http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100006196, Jet Propulsion Laboratory;
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