Ever since 2016, the Republic of Korea (ROK) has been held under the grasp of anxiety regarding fine dust particles which have made its way from the factories and various other production facilities of China. Since then, the matter seemed to be in a state of either sustenance of destructive fine particles in the air, or continuous deterioration of air for people to breathe in.

With such dismal turnouts of events continuing for the East Asia region, including both China and the ROK, people seemed to be rendering this phenomenon as somewhat unsolvable and rather, adjusting to the status quo.

Then, came along COVID19. It has not only destroyed respiratory systems for people and served a role as the 2020 grim reaper, but has also caused the world’s population to stay indoors and distanced away from each other as much as possible.

Now comes the question, as to how COVID19 relates itself with the levels of fine dust, allegedly stemming from China and its production facilities. The answer to this correlation is quite simple. With COVID19, not only were people confined to staying within their rooms, but companies too, faced huge halts in their business operations.

As a corollary, fine dust levels reduced, quite a copious amount, and people imagined, as long as COVID continued, at least the fine dust problems would subside, and the threatening attitude its nature held towards climate change, would be somewhat contained.

The numbers too, do not lie. The units will be the amount of dust in micrograms, in each cubic meter of air. The data for the statistics provided are retrieved from AirKorea under the Korea Environment Corporation, and the decimal points will be rounded up to the first decimal point

After taking a look at the monthly average fine dust levels from January 2020, it was visible that the monthly fine dust level averages reached up to 47.5 micrograms per cubic meter. The highest level during this month amounts up to 77 micrograms per cubic meter, and the lowest, dropping down to 9 micrograms per cubic meter.

Let’s compare this to June 2020. The average for this month, sums up to a 33.1 micrograms per cubic meter. The highest level of fine dust during June, tops up to 52 micrograms per cubic meter, and the lowest level during this month drops down to an outstanding 6 micrograms per cubic meter.

From such numbers, it becomes easily visible, even to the naked eye, that COVID19 and its destruction on human beings, did actually allow a breath of relief for Mother Earth.

Yet, good things do not last forever.

From October, fine dust levels had actually reached “bad,” ever since factories reopened in China. From 20th of October, the measurement of fine dust had reached 41 micrograms per cubic meter, according to Air Korea. According to the Korean Environment Ministry, the bad level is issued once fine dust levels recorded per cubic meter, reach the spectrum of 36 to 75 micrograms per cubic meter.

Air pollutants have recovered to pre-COVID19 levels, once China’s economy started to recover in the 2nd quarter of 2020. Interestingly enough, China’s GDP did increase by 4.9% in the 3rd quarter. With research from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, China’s nitrogen oxide emissions dropped by approximately 40%, during the pinnacle of the COVID19 pandemic, but ricocheted back to 2019 levels during the summer of 2020, as nitrogen oxide is an air pollutant, which creates fine dust in the air.

It is impossible to see what will happen in the future, but it is possible to roughly sketch a brief, somewhat convincing outlook of it. Here’s something which an expert said, during a government-civilian meeting, designed to tackle the fine dust problems, “If the wind does not blow in our favor, fine dust levels will worsen even more this winter” (Woo Jung-hun, Konkuk University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering).