Pandemic restrictions in 2020 highlight the significance of non-road NOx sources in central London

Fluxes of nitrogen oxides (NOx=NO+NO2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) were measured using eddy covariance at the British Telecommunications (BT) Tower in central London during the coronavirus pandemic. Comparing fluxes to those measured in 2017 prior to the pandemic restrictions and the introduction of the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) highlighted a 73 % reduction in NOx emissions between the two periods but only a 20 % reduction in CO2 emissions and a 32 % reduction in traffic load. Use of a footprint model and the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI) identified transport and heat and power generation to be the two dominant sources of NOx and CO2 but with significantly different relative contributions for each species. Application of external constraints on NOx and CO2 emissions allowed the reductions in the different sources to be untangled, identifying that transport NOx emissions had reduced by >73 % since 2017. This was attributed in part to the success of air quality policy in central London but crucially due to the substantial reduction in congestion that resulted from pandemic-reduced mobility. Spatial mapping of the fluxes suggests that central London was dominated by point source heat and power generation emissions during the period of reduced mobility. This will have important implications on future air quality policy for NO2 which, until now, has been primarily focused on the emissions from diesel exhausts.

Impact of Challenging Behavior Online Modules on Korean Parents of Children With Developmental Disabilities: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Challenging behavior exhibited by young children with neurodevelopmental disabilities is known to negatively affect their optimal development and families? quality of life. Although some support exists for English-speaking parents of children with autism who live in high-resource countries, it is scarce for others. Such disparity may also be heightened during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic with its various societal restrictions. To mitigate the treatment gap, we developed and adapted a series of online training modules on behavioral principles and examined its effectiveness with 88 South Korean parents using a randomized controlled trial. We found significant interaction effects on increasing parents? knowledge of behavioral principles, increasing positive parenting practices, and decreasing parental stress. Qualitative social validity data also indicated that parents were highly satisfied with the goals, procedures, and outcomes and that the program positively affected their parenting styles.

Alphabet strategy for diabetes care: A checklist approach in the time of COVID-19 and beyond.

Chronic disease management requires achievement of critical individualised targets to mitigate again long-term morbidity and premature mortality associated with diabetes mellitus. The responsibility for this lies with both the patient and health care professionals. Care plans have been introduced in many healthcare settings to provide a patient-centred approach that is both evidence-based to deliver positive clinical outcomes and allow individualised care. The Alphabet strategy (AS) for diabetes is based around such a care plan and has been evidenced to deliver high clinical standards in both well-resourced and under-resourced settings. Additional patient educational resources include special care plans for those people with diabetes undertaking fasting during Ramadan, Preconception Care, Prevention and Remission of Diabetes. The Strategy and Care Plan has facilitated evidence-based, cost-efficient multifactorial intervention with an improvement in the National Diabetes Audit targets for blood pressure, cholesterol levels and glycated haemoglobin. Many of these attainments were of the standard seen in intensively treated cohorts of key randomized controlled trials in diabetes care such as the Steno-2 and United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study. This is despite working in a relatively under-resourced service within the United Kingdom National Health Service. The AS for diabetes care is a useful tool to consider for planning care, education of people with diabetes and healthcare professional. During the time of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic the risk factors for the increased mortality observed have to be addressed aggressively. The AS has the potential to help with this aspiration.

COVID-19 lockdowns highlight a risk of increasing ozone pollution in European urban areas

In March 2020, non-pharmaceutical intervention measures in the form of lockdowns were applied across Europe to urgently reduce the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus which causes the COVID-19 disease. The aggressive curtailing of the European economy had widespread impacts on the atmospheric composition, particularly for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3). To investigate these changes, we analyse data from 246 ambient air pollution monitoring sites in 102 urban areas and 34 countries in Europe between February and July 2020. Counterfactual, business-as-usual air quality time series are created using machine-learning models to account for natural weather variability. Across Europe, we estimate that NO2 concentrations were 34 % and 32 % lower than expected for respective traffic and urban background locations, whereas O3 was 30 % and 21 % higher (in the same respective environments) at the point of maximum restriction on mobility. To put the 2020 changes into context, average NO2 trends since 2010 were calculated, and the changes experienced across European urban areas in 2020 was equivalent to 7.6 years of average NO2 reduction (or concentrations which might be anticipated in 2028). Despite NO2 concentrations decreasing by approximately a third, total oxidant (Ox) changed little, suggesting that the reductions in NO2 were substituted by increases in O3. The lockdown period demonstrated that the expected future reductions in NO2 in European urban areas are likely to lead to widespread increases in urban O3 pollution unless additional mitigation measures are introduced.

UK surface NO2 levels dropped by 42 % during the COVID-19 lockdown: impact on surface O3

We report changes in surface nitrogen dioxide (NO2) across the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic when large and rapid emission reductions accompanied a nationwide lockdown (23 March–31 May 2020, inclusively), and compare them with values from an equivalent period over the previous 5 years. Data are from the Automatic Urban and Rural Network (AURN), which forms the basis of checking nationwide compliance with ambient air quality directives. We calculate thatNO2 reduced by 42%±9.8% on average across all 126 urban AURN sites, with a slightly larger (48%±9.5%) reduction at sites close to the roadside (urban traffic). We also find that ozone (O3) increased by 11 % on average across the urban background network during the lockdown period. Total oxidant levels (Ox=NO2+O3) increased only slightly on average (3.2%±0.2%), suggesting the majority of this change can be attributed to photochemical repartitioning due to the reduction in NOx. Generally, we find larger, positiveOx changes in southern UK cities, which we attribute to increased UV radiation and temperature in 2020 compared to previous years. The net effect of the NO2 andO3 changes is a sharp decrease in exceedances of the NO2 air quality objective limit for the UK, with only one exceedance in London in 2020 up until the end of May. Concurrent increases in O3 exceedances in London emphasize the potential for O3 to become an air pollutant of concern as NOx emissions are reduced in the next 10–20 years.