Pandemic COVID-19 ends but soil pollution increases: Impacts and a new approach for risk assessment

For three years, a large amount of manufactured pollutants such as plastics, antibiotics and disinfectants has been released into the environment due to COVID-19. The accumulation of these pollutants in the environment has exacerbated the damage to the soil system. However, since the epidemic outbreak, the focus of researchers and public attention has consistently been on human health. It is noteworthy that studies conducted in conjunction with soil pollution and COVID-19 represent only 4 % of all COVID-19 studies. In order to enhance researchers' and the public awareness of the seriousness on the COVID-19 derived soil pollution, we propose the viewpoint that “pandemic COVID-19 ends but soil pollution increases” and recommend a whole-cell biosensor based new method to assess the environmental risk of COVID-19 derived pollutants. This approach is expected to provide a new way for environmental risk assessment of soils affected by contaminants produced from the pandemic.