The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in stay-at-home policies and other social distancing behaviors in the United States in spring of 2020. This paper examines the impact that these actions had on emissions and expected health effects through reduced personal vehicle travel and electricity consumption. Using daily cell phone mobility data for each U.S. county, we find that vehicle travel dropped about 40% by mid-April across the nation. States that imposed stay-at-home policies before March 28 decreased travel slightly more than other states, but travel in all states decreased significantly. Using data on hourly electricity consumption by electricity region (e.g., balancing authority), we find that electricity consumption fell about 6% on average by mid-April with substantial heterogeneity. Given these decreases in travel and electricity use, we estimate the county-level expected improvements in air quality, and, therefore, expected declines in mortality. Overall, we estimate that, for a month of social distancing, the expected premature deaths due to air pollution from personal vehicle travel and electricity consumption declined by approximately 360 deaths, or about 25% of the baseline 1500 deaths. In addition, we estimate that CO${}_2$ emissions from these sources fell by 46 million metric tons (a reduction of approximately 19%) over the same time frame.

中文翻译：

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减少 COVID-19 社交距离造成的空气污染对健康的预期影响

2020 年春季，COVID-19 大流行导致美国采取居家政策和其他社会疏远行为。本文通过减少个人车辆出行和电力消耗，研究了这些行动对排放和预期健康影响的影响. 使用美国每个县的每日手机移动数据，我们发现到 4 月中旬，全国的汽车出行下降了约 40%。在 3 月 28 日之前实施居家隔离政策的州比其他州减少的出行量略多，但所有州的出行量均显着减少。使用按电力地区（例如，平衡当局）的每小时用电量数据，我们发现到 4 月中旬，用电量平均下降了约 6%，具有很大的异质性。鉴于旅行和电力使用的这些减少，我们估计县级空气质量的预期改善，以及死亡率的预期下降。总体而言，我们估计，在一个月的社交距离内，因个人车辆旅行和电力消耗造成的空气污染而导致的预期过早死亡人数减少了约 360 人，约占基线 1500 人死亡人数的 25%。此外，我们估计 CO${}_2$ 在同一时间段内，这些来源的排放量减少了 4600 万吨（减少了约 19%）。