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That leads to the next question: why would Corona-stay-at-home stop people from cooking food or heating their homes?

Perhaps they are using natural gas instead of biomass?

Not really. Wood or coal stoves are still very much in use in villages. At least that's what I saw living in many developing countries for the past two decades.

Btw, burning biomass would not change the problem. Wood and charcoal is biomass too.

People in Kathmandu are using gas. That's a few million people. Sure in the villages, but the numbers pale in comparison

Wrong again. In developing countries, a majority of people live in the countryside. That's one thing that differentiates those countries from developed countries.

But that's not really important, because even if only 20% of households used wood/coal for cooking, it is very much noticiable.

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