Lessons learned from COVID-19 for the environment and health agenda: web annex: rapid review of reviews on COVID-19, environment and health

ABSTRACT

This document presents a rapid review of reviews that was undertaken to establish evidence of the relation between environmental health and the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The review was prepared as a background document for a policy brief entitled How coronavirus disease has changed the environment and health landscape a policy brief to underpin discussions about the future of environmental health, in preparation for the seventh Ministerial Conference of the European Environment and Health Process. The review explores possible contributions to the genesis and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 in humans, as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic itself and also of the mitigation measures used to reduce the spread of disease. In many cases, the extreme pressure created by the disease and its mitigation revealed weaknesses in the resilience and flexibility of environmental health and related systems; in other cases, it showed what could be done to address other existential pressures, such as climate change. A number of reviewers have seen the pandemic as a pivotal point for change and improvement.