I know the crisis is far from over yet, but has anyone been running some mortality/morbidity numbers from the off-the-charts AQI the West Coast has been enduring, some places for weeks now? Air pollution has a huge toll on health, and this is now a tragically sustained event.
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If we had a functioning government, there would be an emergency distribution of MERV-13 filters, HEPA filters, N95+ masks up and down the West Coast weeks ago. That's the same rating/set-up for COVID, too. There will be long-term impacts on many who cannot filter out the smoke.
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Chronic exposure to air pollution is among the leading contributors to many diseases and mortality around the world—cardiopulmonary diseases, strokes, cancer, etc. This is a short-term event in comparison but the exposure is strikingly high. It's a huge crisis. Where's the alarm?
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Tragically, ten years from now, when we run the stats comparing people who lived in the West Coast but just happened to be elsewhere in August-September of 2020, we are likely to find strikingly better health outcomes, especially for cardiopulmonary disease. WHERE'S THE ALARM?
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Replying to @zeynep
This is bad, but for fire prone locales this isn't really all that different from many other years when one has a fire close by. 2003, 2005, 2012, 1015, 2017 etc. Major cumulative effects. As a part time wildland firefighters I increasingly think about my long term exposure.
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Interestingly enough I was talking with a USFS air quality scientist. We have about 30 years of monitoring due to clean air act. In recent years overall air quality has actually improved on an average yearly basis, however the worst days due to wildfire smoke have gotten worse.
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Right, so we have these multi-week peak events now. What will be their impact? I'd love to see more action on this. In my third-world experience, I start feeling respiratory distress in as little as a week in high pollution places.
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