SUB-COVID-808


  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
Citation: L. Campanella (2020) Even 
Covid-19 could teach us something if we 
were good students! Substantia 4(1) 
Suppl. 1: 917. doi: 10.13128/Substantia-
917 

 
Received: Apr 19, 2020 

 
Revised: Apr 22, 2020 

 
Just Accepted Online: Apr 27, 2020 

 
Published: Apr 27, 2020 

 
Copyright: © 2020 L. Campanella. This 
is an open access, peer-reviewed article 
published by Firenze University Press 
(http://www. fupress.com/substantia) 
and distributed under the terms of the 
Creative Com- mons Attribution License, 
which per- mits unrestricted use, 
distribution, and reproduction in any 
medium, provided the original author 
and source are credited. 

 
Data Availability Statement: All rel- 
evant data are within the paper and its 
Supporting Information files. 

 
Competing Interests: The Author(s) 
declare(s) no conflict of interest. 

Firenze University Press 
www.fupress.com/substantia 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Editorial 
Even Covid-19 could teach us something if we 
were good students! 
 
Luigi Campanella 
Department of Chemistry, Sapienza University, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy 
*Corresponding author: luigi.campanella@uniroma1.it 

 

 
     In these dramatic times most of the attention is paid to the statistics of recovered, 
dead and infected people. But here I would point out another aspect that can make 
us able to forget even for a very short moment the terrible statistics I mentioned 
above and open us to hope. 
     While we are closed and locked in our homes nature seems to take a breath. 
Some days ago, a family of ducks walking around in a desert Florence and looking 
for something to eat inspired an incredible feeling of tenderness. This was just the 
latter of a series of images available on the web, at the same time disquieting, 
romantic and bucolic, that illustrate the amazing transformation of nature and of 
fauna in the time of this pandemy. 
     These images disquiet because we never saw so many animals walking free 
down the streets of our cities, in places that are now empty and neglected and that 
just two months ago were palpitating of life. These images are romantic and bucolic 
as they show that despite the war bulletins of death of these weeks nature wants to 
speak of continuing life. However this is not the only subject on which we have to 
ponder. 
     The vision of our earth from the space is deeply changed. If we start from Italy, 
we can see the Po Valley finally smog-free: the yellow and red colours of the 
meteomaps representing different levels of pollution recorded in January and 
February 2020 left room to a pure atmosphere. 
     The air pollution of this area has lead to pathologies and deaths: we must recall 
and think about the last conclusion of the Environment European Commission. 
There, it was stated that due to nitrogen oxides pollution in Italy during the last 
year about 15 thousand people died! During this pandemy the concentration of 
these dangerous pollutants fell abruptly about 50% of the initial values. 
     Another data reported in these days indicates that in 20 days the carbon dioxide 
level measured in the State of New York is the same as that produced during a 
whole year. This occurred because of the turned off diesel engines, of the reduced 
industrial work, civil activities and airflights. But other pictures force us to reflect: 
the hares in the parks in Milan, the transparency of the water in the Venice lagoon 
that make that allow us to see swimming fish, and the dolphins in the Cagliari's 
harbour. 
     The question is: will we be able to learn a lesson from what Covid-19 has taught 
us on the social, civil and scientific side about new lifestyles and more active 
interactions between medicine and other discplines? 

 
 

Substantia. An International Journal of the History of Chemistry 4(1) Suppl. 1: 917, 
2020 ISSN 2532-3997 (online) | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-917