Like all other Earth Days, today we celebrate our planet and show our encouragement for all of the environmental efforts being made on its behalf. But this Earth Day 2020 has an enormous, unmistakably important variable added to the equation: Coronavirus.

According to an article in LiveScience, the first known case of coronavirus dates back to November 2019. The outbreak was first contained in China, but through the heavy use of air travel, the virus began to spread like wildfire. Not long after the first case was identified, many other countries became hotspots for the disease, causing a global pandemic.

This period of our coronavirus-induced shutdown is unlike anything we have experienced in recent times. With our busy lives on halt, the planet began to awaken, like it was finally able to take a breath; Bringing about some natural phenomena that shed hope on the environment, hinting that we aren’t yet too far gone.