Millions of people in the U.S. are under air quality alerts as smoke from raging Canadian wildfires sweeps down the East Coast. Some schools in New York and Washington are canceling outdoor activities, and airports are facing delays or ground stops due to the poor visibility.
People are also reading… What is Air Quality Index, and what does it tell us?“It’s a conglomerate of measurements. So it’s not just particulate matter, but it has multiple inputs put out by the [US Environmental Protection Agency] that determines what kind of pollution is in the air right now. AirNow.gov is the same thing meteorologists use when they talk about green, yellow, orange, red, purple color coding,” Patel said.
“This air is particularly dangerous to the very young, the elderly and pregnant ladies. So it is recommended that they do not spend any time outside. Definitely no playing outside and no exercising outside. If you feel so inclined to have to exercise outside on a day like today, it is recommended that you are far from traffic, where there’s not extra pollution. Because right now, it is really bad,” she said.“Clearly, any kind of further insult to their lungs will be detrimental to their health.
Is there any way people can be protected while outside?“We do have some natural protection. Our nasal hairs can protect us from a lot of these particles. But these are really small particles from the wildfires, so it’s not enough,” Capo said. According to Rosenberg, “these particulates are particularly irritating to your upper airway, your nose or your throat and your eyes, so if you feel any of this, it is a warning sign. We have sensitive neurological sensors that can act like an alarm that means you’re potentially breathing something harmful, so you should heed that warning and go inside.”“Pets have to go outside and use their facilities, but don’t go out running with them, and minimize their time outside, too,” DeCarlo said.
DeCarlo agrees. “Indoors are generally about half or less the concentration of air pollutants from outside when it comes to particles, which is what we’re concerned with here. And that all goes away as soon as you open your windows and doors and just let free-flowing air come in,” he said. “People who invested in HEPA air filtration units during Covid, might be time to break those out again and run those indoor spaces where we are to kind of minimize our exposure to outdoor air pollution.
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