Environment impact assessment of COVID-19

Novel infectious coronavirus epidemic (COVID-19) with vulnerable transmission among human was detected initially in late 2019 at Wuhan, China. Later, it transforms to global pandemic within the first quarter of 2020. COVID-19 has a significant impact on our environment specially in land, water and atmosphere. During handling of COVID-19, huge surplus quantity (~ 600% rise) of waste were generated majorly from healthcare sectors, which caused tremendous load to pre-exist solid waste management facilities. Also, the presence of infectious personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks, gloves, face shield, gown and head cover were reported in municipal waste sectors. These wastes have become a great threat to our society and has ability for community outbreak. Additionally, the pandemic makes us realize about the ability of our accessible treatment infrastructure and further requirement of superior management initiatives to deal with such emergencies. Many countries have imposed different types of restrictions and even lockdown to stop the spread of pandemic. Despite devastation, the lockdown due to COVID-19 has significantly brought down the pollution level in all forms of natural environment, specifically water resources (rivers, lakes) and air environment.