> People will be fine and no one is going to develop long term health issues from a couple days of smokey air. I feel bad for people with lung conditions as breathing was made more difficult for a bit but no one is dying from this.
That's simply not true. People can, and do, develop long-term issues from acute exposure to bad air (that's literally why the range is called "Hazardous" on the AQI).
Not to mention that one in ten New Yorkers has asthma, which means that yes, people can literally die from acute exposure to air pollution.
You are incorrect. Current prevalence state-wide is 8%[0] and lifetime prevalence is 14%, indicating that many people are expected to develop asthma but have not yet been diagnosed.
Incidence is more concentrated in the city due to a strong causative relationship between asthma and certain measurable factors: poverty, childhood exposure to vehicular-generated air pollution, and the tendency to have highways located near poorer neighborhoods.
If you look at a map of asthma incidence in the city by neighborhood, this heterogeneous distribution is even clearer.
Well, all I can say, is these numbers seem crazy to me. It appears that the condition is all a mishmash of "lungs in bad state", predicated by anything from "that dude was breathing deadly toxic air", to "always like this".
I think there should be more nuance here, but concede you are correct as the subject is discussed.
> Current prevalence state-wide is 8%[0] and lifetime prevalence is 14%, indicating that many people are expected to develop asthma but have not yet been diagnosed
Perhaps a bathtub curve? Many people have childhood asthma which resolves in adolescence. So they'd count for lifetime but not current.
> People can, and do, develop long-term issues from acute exposure to bad air
Not for a day, no. At least not for what was going happening in the East Coast. It wasn't like ash and debris was flying through the air. It was like sitting around a campfire. People aren't that fragile. Now, hypochondriacs might think they are (and we have a growing population of those), but they simply aren't. Is it bad for someone with COPD? Yes, but the damage had already been done for years.
> It wasn’t like ash and debris was flying through the air.
Isn’t that exactly what smoke is? It’s worse than visibly large particles, the small particles are more likely to get inside your lungs and do damage.
> Not for a day, no.
You might want to familiarize yourself with the evidence-based WHO air quality guidelines which sets standards based on short-term 8 & 24 hour exposure periods, and separate long-term recommendations for annual exposure. https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/what-ar...
The recommended short-term 24 hour exposure levels are far below what NYC saw (as well as what many cities in the west have had for months at a time over the last ten years. These numbers are published based on the WHO’s ability to demonstrate that adverse health effects appear in the population when exposure exceeds these levels. The recommendations were lowered recently compared to their 2005 numbers because the studies and data and evidence have grown in the last 20 years and it shows that even mild levels of exposure result in more doctor’s visits, more lung conditions, more athsma, more damage and more risk.
Junk “science”. It’s extrapolations that make no sense and that don’t translate to reality. Ever heard the saying “lies, damn lies, and statistics?” Well that’s what this interpretation is.
You can’t generalize from a 1-off event like we saw (where most nobody was being exposed for much of it) and then average across the population and say it causes things.
Repeated exposure, yes. But not this. Is it good for you? No. But it’s not like it’s really hurting anyone. Walking past a person smoking a cigarette isnt going to give you cancer no matter how hysterical sone people get about it. It’s ridiculous to even entertain it.
Crazy. Why do you believe that? Have you read the WHO’s methodology? What is your expertise in air quality studies and/or policy? Do you know how many scientists and organizations outside the WHO agree with their assessment?
Nobody said anything about walking past a single smoker, that’s pure straw man in this context. The stats also aren’t generalized from a single event. You’re arguing armchair FUD logic without any facts, against real-world evidence from a global organization with a many decades history of monitoring all available science on this topic.
Because no one is dying from some smoke blowing across the region for a day, lol.
Chronic pollution is a problem. Breathing bad air daily is a problem. working around smoky environments day in and day out is a problem Having some smoke in the area for a day is not.
I'm tired of the neurotics and hypochondriacs making big deals out of things that aren't. Like, don't get fat and don't smoke, and use bad things in moderation and get regular checkups and don't stress about everything and you'll live to 80 in most cases. Some people get unlucky.
People dramatizing this recent event like it was HARMFUL to them and "scary" or some type of public health crisis are insane. Posts like yours that for whatever reason want to reference something that isn't really science but is used like it's irrefutable truth to say that the smoke event was somehow dangerous - I mean, just c'mon. It's fine.
> Because no one is dying from smoke blowing across the region for a day, lol.
Why do you think that? How do you know, exactly?
I would totally recommend reading the WHO report! The guidelines are based on mortality statistics. They have in fact studied how often people are dying from a 24 hour exposure to bad air. Statistically, a few people are actually dying from one “bad day” exposure. It’s not many people, but it’s still a measurable number greater than zero, and they are demonstrating the number is greater than if they didn’t have the one bad day of smoke. Yes, for a single event it affects the most prone population. What we are talking about is risk factors. Most people will not die from one day of smoke, but that doesn’t mean no one will.
I could see this topic being irritating to hear about if you don’t believe in science and don’t trust the WHO, and we certainly have a political climate with people intentionally trying to reduce public trust in science and organizations like the WHO. But it’s worth keeping an open mind and studying a little bit about what they’re actually saying, what they’re not saying, and how they arrived at their conclusions.
> They have in fact studied how often people are dying from a 24 hour exposure to bad air. Statistically, a few people are actually dying from one “bad day” exposure.
Yeah it wasn’t the million other things they did in the last 80 years of their lives. Perfectly healthy people keeling over because of a bad air quality day lol. Please take a moment to use a small bit of logic here. This is a make believe idea like people who died in car accidents but had Covid were victims of Covid. This is aggregate nonsense and to suggest a single, mild event (hundreds of miles from danger) was the bullet to the head is so far fetched as to be hilarious to me.
I’m not a science renter but as a person highly educated in that field I can spit bullshit quickly. I know what the report is saying because stats and math are fun to tell a story. But just because you’re using the tools of science doesn’t mean you’re doing meaningful science.
Your report is a political statement to justify power/action when it isn’t warranted. Much like people used to reference the word of god as authorities truth.
Maybe all the alarmists and doom sayers caused unhealthy rubes undue stress that that’s what did it. They never even breathed a breath.
Your science is laughable at best in the context of this weeks event.
Go directly inhale camp fire smoke for 24 hours straight and tell me how you feel.
Do you live in NY? I dont know anyone that lives here that feels the way you do. I can only reason that someone who is so far removed from the situation can say something so callous.
My dad who has 65 years in NYC has never seen it this bad, and that was with pollution before EPA was created.
I do in fact life in the area. From Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon it smelled a bit smokey and it was hazy and the sun reflected off the particles. Was eerie.
And I kept my windows closed and we did not go to the playground. But the dog was still walked and I went about my business walking around or driving when needed. It was an exceptional scenario but it wasn’t dangerous.
People need to get over themselves I think. It was fine for the short duration it was.
That's simply not true. People can, and do, develop long-term issues from acute exposure to bad air (that's literally why the range is called "Hazardous" on the AQI).
Not to mention that one in ten New Yorkers has asthma, which means that yes, people can literally die from acute exposure to air pollution.