As the Covid-19 pandemic gripped the United States four years ago, a surprise boon emerged in the form of brilliantly clear skies as lockdowns kept people out of their cars and otherwise shuttered much of the economy.
That pollution-takes-a-holiday moment was fleeting, a new report suggests.
Despite the blue-sky phenomenon, roughly 131 million people, or more than one-third of the country’s population, were exposed to unhealthy air in the form of smog or soot during the period from 2020 through 2022, the American Lung Association found in its latest annual State of the Air survey released Wednesday.
Despite “a lot of optimism” in the spring of 2020, “the data do not show significant improvement,” Paul Billings, the group’s senior vice president for public policy, said in an interview.
