The Short-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Epidemic on Socio-Economic Activities in China Using OMI-NO2 Monitoring Results

As an air pollutant closely related to urban traffic and heavy industrial capacity, the variation of NO2 (Nitrogen Dioxide) concentration can directly reflect the strength of socio-economic activities. Using the weekly average results of daily product synthesis of tropospheric NO2 column concentrations from OMI satellite inversion, a weekly-scale variation series of standardized socioeconomic activity index during the Spring Festival period of 2019-2021 is constructed. The results show that the Spring Festival holiday also suppresses socioeconomic activity in normal years, but the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic leads to an extended period of 2-3 weeks of weakened socioeconomic activity in China after the holiday, while the minimum value of socioeconomic activity intensity decreases by 0.12. Although socio-economic activity is significantly suppressed in the short term, the intensity of socio-economic activity rises steadily with the gradual resumption of work and production everywhere from the third week after the Spring Festival in China and has reached 60.91% of the highest level before the holiday in the seventh week after the holiday.