( Yuki Iwamura / AP Photo )
WNYC's health and science editor Nsikan Akpan brings the latest on the area's air quality as smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to blanket the Northeast and beyond. Plus, Elizabeth Kim, reporter for Gothamist and WNYC discusses how the mayor and other City Hall officials have handled the air quality situation.
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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom filling in for Brian today. On today's show, it's another smoky start to the day. We'll bring you the latest about the air out there and what you need to know to stay safer. We've also got our eye on the Supreme Court since they'll be issuing opinions from cases this term. If any major opinions come down, we'll talk about it later in the show. Plus a public safety experiment in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Police took a backseat as civilians responded to 911 calls in a two-block radius for five days. We'll talk to a reporter and two anti-violence activists involved with the experiment. Then for Pride Month, what is the state of queer representation in media these days. Today is World Ocean Day. We'll talk about clean or not, the ocean and other bodies of water in this area.
First, we're starting the show for the second day in a row talking about how to deal with a dense cloud of smoke from wildfires hundreds of miles away. Lifelong New Yorkers know that smog and pollution have long been part of city life, but yesterday was something else literally. The EPA's AirNow data tracker found the Northeast region had the worst air quality in the nation. Officials said it was the worst air quality in New York City since the 1960s. It was so bad the Yankees postponed their game against the White Sox last night, public schools canceled all outdoor activities like recess and field days yesterday, and the city suspended alternate side-of-the-street parking today. If you were out and about like I was, you saw the sky turn orange, and yellow, and gray.
Health officials are encouraging people to put back those high-quality N95 and K95 masks on outdoors, the one place we've become accustomed to taking them off. Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams are encouraging people to stay inside with the windows shut if possible and the air conditioner on.
Governor Hochul: You don't need to go out and run tonight. You don't need to go out and take a walk. You don't need to push the baby in the stroller. This is not a safe time to do that and I want to reiterate that.
Mayor Adams: We're encouraging New Yorkers to stay home indoors tonight and tomorrow whenever possible, especially our vulnerable New Yorkers. All New Yorkers should limit outdoor activity to the greatest extent possible. If you must be outside, we recommend wearing a mask, especially if you are elderly or a younger child.
Brigid Bergin: It's a lot, and hopefully it's not going to last too long, but that's where we're at right now. Joining me to take your calls is WNYC's health and science editor Nsikan Akpan and WNYC's Elizabeth Kim who covers the mayor and city hall. Nsikan, Liz, thanks so much for joining us. I know you've both been very busy this week.
Elizabeth Kim: Good morning, Brigid.
Nsikan Akpan: Hey, good morning.
Brigid Bergin: Listeners, the phones are open. We want to hear from you. How did you experience the conditions yesterday, and how are you feeling about it all today, physically, emotionally? What steps are you taking to protect yourself? Do you have a question about how to make sense of these air quality alerts? We want to hear from you. Call us at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC or tweet @BrianLehrer. Nsikan, let's start with just how bad the air quality was yesterday and today. Your team and my immensely talented colleague Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky wrote a piece for Gothamist that said the air quality reached a "hazardous level." What does that mean exactly?
Nsikan Akpan: That means it's as bad as it can get. Essentially it's an indicator for emergency health conditions around air quality. It also means that everyone is likely to be affected by the poor conditions, so you're really going to feel it just walking outside. You're going to feel it in your eyes. It's going to be burning. It also just elevates everyone's risk for even developing some lingering issues if you breathe too much in or if you already have a chronic condition like asthma or heart disease.
Brigid Bergin: We heard from Mayor Adams and the city's health commissioner yesterday describe the air quality in New York as the worst since the 1960s. Here's a little of Mayor Adams yesterday.
Mayor Adams: Hazardous condition that we are facing on the levels of health concern that is clearly alarming for New Yorkers. This is the highest level index of our knowledge since the 60s.
Brigid Bergin: Nsikan, can you talk a little bit about how accurate that description is? Did we measure it the same way in the 60s as we're measuring things now?
Nsikan Akpan: Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if that's accurate. The air quality yesterday, you could literally see it. You really could see through the skies. Back then we didn't have things like catalytic converters or other things to remove pollution from the air, so I actually wouldn't be surprised if that was precise. Right now, we are a step down. We're at a very unhealthy level compared to yesterday, but that still means that people have a slightly elevated risk for health effects.
Brigid Bergin: What a strange day that very unhealthy is a slight improvement on our air quality. Nsikan, your team is monitoring conditions really on an ongoing basis. How important is it for the rest of us to be checking that air quality index throughout the day today, the way your team is probably checking it on an hourly basis?
Nsikan Akpan: I think of the situation a bit like what happens when there's a hurricane coming. There's just a steady stream of alerts that people need to be paying attention to just to understand what their risk might be. You don't necessarily need to be checking it every minute, but maybe every hour because that's typically how often the air quality index is updated, especially if you are sensitive to poor air quality if you have one of those conditions like asthma or heart disease. It's a bit like a hurricane. Just keep your eye on it, listen out to public officials, check your trusted news outlets to just see where things are at and how safe it is to be outside.
Brigid Bergin: Well, I want to get some of our callers. Our board filled up almost immediately when the segments started. Let's go to Tamara in Washington Heights. Tamara, thanks so much for calling. Welcome to WNYC.
Tamara: Hey, there. I don't know if you can hear it in my voice, but I've been sick. First, it was allergies, now it's the air quality. I went to the clinic to see if I was sick, and they were like, "No, you're healthy. It's just the air," so yes.
Brigid Bergin: What are you doing to take care of yourself today, Tamara?
Tamara: Oh, well, luckily I work indoors. I just try to stay indoors following [unintelligible 00:07:31], especially since I just start coughing the minute I walk outside. I'm just here.
Brigid Bergin: Well, take care of yourself, and thank you so much for calling. I think a lot of people are experiencing what you're experiencing. Let's go to Mark in Brooklyn. Mark, welcome to WNYC. I think you have a question for Nsikan.
Mark: Or anyone who can answer. I was just curious as to why all these admonitions are regarding stepping outside. It seems to me the air quality inside my house would not be very significantly different than outside unless I closed all the windows, turned on the air conditioner for some filtration effect. I don't really understand why my home's air quality is significantly better than the exterior. Maybe someone can elucidate.
Brigid Bergin: Nsikan, you want to jump in there.
Nsikan Akpan: Yes, I believe it's a question that we've been getting. Obviously, the air is all around us, but you have to think that-- you look at your windows, you look at your doors, typically there are very small gaps, and you need to think about this pollution particulate matter as-- it's like fine particles. These are solid and liquid, even though they're really, really tiny. Just having your doors closed, having your windows closed, that does help keep the air that's indoors from mixing with the air that's outdoors. I think there were also tips that were given out by city health officials yesterday that said if you have an HVAC system or an air conditioning system, make sure to shut that intake that pulls air from outside, and just have the air that's indoors recirculating. Those physical gaps of doors and windows do help keep that toxic air that's outside from seeping in.
Brigid Bergin: Mark, thanks so much for your call. As you said, Nsikan, that's something a lot of people are wondering about. We have another question from Tom in Manhattan, which I think raises another set of issues that people are wondering about related to these air quality indices. Tom, welcome to WNYC.
Tom: Hi, Brigid. Thanks to you and the team for keeping close track of this. Yes, it looked like the apocalypse yesterday here in Manhattan, but I've been trying to track the air quality index numbers, and I'm finding at least three different numbers that are appearing, there might be more. One is from the government website, I believe it's AirNow. There's another site called Air IQ, and there's Plume Labs, which is used by AccuWeather, and there's sometimes a difference for New York City, for Manhattan, of more than 100 points. The government one was showing 350 or more this morning, 322, and some of the others were showing 160. I'm wondering why this great disparity and which one is WNYC relying on to give us information. Thanks so much.
Brigid Bergin: Thank you, Tom. Nsikan, can you tell us a little bit about some of the work that your team is doing to monitor these air quality numbers?
Nsikan Akpan: Yes. AirNow, that one is run by the EPA, so the US Environmental Protection Agency. What they do is they pull in readings from all of the state environmental organizations. That is the standardized rating and ranking that people should be following because that's what public officials are basing their decision-making off of. IQ Air, and Plume Labs, those are private companies, and so their index is essentially what they built to judge the risk. I'm not too surprised that you're seeing some differences there. You also have to think that private companies might analyze the data slightly different from the way that a public standard would be. The one that we really trust and the one that we go back to over and over is AirNow from the EPA.
The City Health Department also has some independent air monitors that are placed around different spots, I think mostly in Queens and in Manhattan and the Bronx. They can give us some real-time readings about how the evening rush hour is affecting air quality around the Queensborough Bridge and things like that. Those are the two sources that we rely on, the EPA AirNow and the City Health Department's real-time trackers.
Brigid Bergin: So interesting and it's so helpful. I know I was looking at Jacqueline's story this morning, and it's funny. When I came in very early this morning via the New York City ferry, it was hazy and the sun had that strange, eerie, orange glow, but it felt slightly clearer than it did yesterday. Nsikan, I want to bring Liz into this conversation in just a moment, but quickly, just because it looks a little bit better outside, does that mean the air is actually any safer today?
Nsikan Akpan: Yes, the way to think about it is that particulate matter or PM, I think that's the acronym that everybody's seeing out there, it comes in different sizes, and so we typically think about it in two different groups. There's PM 2.5, which is any particles that are up to 2.5 microns in size. Then there's PM 10, which is anything that's up to 10 microns in size. This week we've essentially had a ton of PM 2.5, which is dangerous and hazardous. Yesterday we also had a lot of PM 10, the larger amount, and that probably contributed a little bit to the worsening with the visibility that everybody noticed. There were also some weather patterns related to the air column, the atmosphere column that runs from here all the way up to space that led to what I would call is like a compression of the smoke around the ground level and so that's why it was particularly bad yesterday in terms of being able to see.
Just because it's clear doesn't necessarily mean that it's better because we still have a lot of that smaller particulate matter, PM 2.5 that's still out there right now.
Brigid Bergin: That's so interesting. We'll talk more about when we know it will be clear. I want to bring my colleague Liz Kim into this conversation. She was at the briefings with city officials yesterday. Let's shift a little bit from the practical advice and science and talk about what kind of guidance we're getting from people in charge and when they decided to start providing that guidance. You were at Mayor Adams' first emergency briefing, which was yesterday morning, when he was asked why the city waited actually until Wednesday morning to start notifying city residents when it was really clear as of Tuesday night that something was wrong. Here's a little bit of how Adams responded to questions about why they didn't start talking about it sooner.
Mayor Adams: This was an extremely fast-moving issue. We had several tweets throughout the day, several communications, several coordination.
Brigid Bergin: Liz, what else can you tell us about the mayor's response yesterday and how he is trying to frame the narrative of how the city's handling this?
Elizabeth Kim: That's essentially what you heard there. That was his response, that this is unprecedented, this is a unique situation for New York City. He said that he had officials working on this starting around noon on Tuesday. Now, the question was, though, he did not send out an official statement until around 11:30 that night. The issue is that throughout Tuesday and we were seeing it worsening, New Yorkers were seeing something unfolding before their very eyes, and they were asking questions, and you could see the pictures popping up on social media streams. I think it's a fair question. Why did the mayor himself wait so late to weigh in now? He says there were tweets. That's correct, there were tweets but should there have been more of a widespread messaging?
Nothing works better than when the mayor himself appears at a podium and speaks directly to New Yorkers. That was the question that was put to him on Wednesday morning, is "Why'd you wait so long?"
Brigid Bergin: We have a lot more questions from listeners about how the city is treating different populations within the city and more about how other public officials are responding. We're going to take a short break and come back with more with Liz Kim and Nsikan Akpan in just a moment. You're listening to the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC.
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The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom filling in for Brian today. My guests on WNYC and Gothamist reporter Elizabeth Kim and WNYC and Gothamist health and science editor, Nsikan Akpan. We're talking about the smoky conditions in the city and how that air is affecting all of us. Liz, just before we went to the break, we were talking about how the city is responding and when the city is responding. I want to bring in a caller who has a question about how the city is thinking about different populations who will be impacted by these conditions. Let's go to Mars in Crown Heights. Mars, welcome to WNYC.
Mars: Hi. Thanks for having me. As we know, most of the health advice right now is to shelter in place and stay inside. However, many New Yorkers are homeless and unhoused, including around 104,000 young NYC public school students and many homeless New Yorkers are particularly vulnerable to this hazardous air quality, including elderly New Yorkers, as I mentioned, young children, and people with health conditions like asthma. How is the city planning to make sure that people who can't stay inside find relief?
Brigid Bergin: Mars,1 thanks so much for your question. Liz, I know that the mayor did two briefings yesterday. Did he answer a question related to that and provide some guidance for people who can't just follow what health officials are saying and stay inside?
Elizabeth Kim: That's an excellent question, and remarkably, no, the city did not address that. It doesn't just go for homeless people, but there were a lot of questions about people who work outdoors for a living. Think about construction workers, think about delivery workers.
Brigid Bergin: Lifeguards
Elizabeth Kim: Lifeguards, although they did close the beaches. Yes, that's a very pertinent question. I will say that there could have been a lot of questions put to the mayor definitely at the first 10:00 AM briefing, but they didn't take a lot of questions. They took, I would say, maybe about 15 minutes or so of questions, and it seemed like they needed to wrap it up very quickly. I would say it was very similar with the briefing that evening. Definitely, that is something that other elected's have raised, is what about all of these vulnerable individuals who are forced to be outside?
Brigid Bergin: What are we hearing from some of the other public officials? How are they reacting to how the mayor is handling this? Has anyone said that City Hall has been on top of things?
Elizabeth Kim: You have Queens State Senator Jessica Ramos. She represents a portion of western Queens that's nicknamed Asthma Alley. That's because of the high pollution there and how vulnerable her constituents are to issues around respiratory problems. She was livid at the mayor's response. She felt that it was late, but it was also insufficient in her eyes because she raised a lot of these questions. In fact, she had exactly that question about homeless individuals, and she had said that she thought that the city should change some of the checkout rules at shelters where homeless individuals have to check out at a certain time, that they should extend that so that they could stay indoors, but there are a lot of questions like this that other electeds have raised that so far have not been answered.
I did put the question about whether the city was going to distribute free masks to let's say NYCHA residents. At 10:00 AM, the answer I got was "That's a very good question. We're considering it," but they really didn't have a plan in place. Now, by that evening, the mayor had announced that he himself was going to distribute masks at NYCHA developments, and we did see a video tweeted from his press team at around I would say-- Between 9:00 and 10:00 of him doing exactly that, but you have to wonder, should that have been implemented far earlier in the day?
Brigid Bergin: Sure. There are many NYCHA developments in the city of New York. I don't know how many of them-- The mayor's busy person, how many he was able to be at personally to distribute those masks. Liz, what are we expecting to hear from City Hall today? What kind of monitoring do we know that they're doing going forward? Are we going to hear any more from Mayor Adams on this issue? Does he have anything scheduled to talk about it today?
Elizabeth Kim: He doesn't have anything scheduled, which I think some people also thought was a little curious since it's an ongoing multi-day event. That's how they themselves described it, but I wouldn't be surprised if he puts a briefing on his schedule. So far, what we have are the instructions that he gave last night, which was, to limit your time outdoors. That if you do go outside, wear a mask. That's especially true if you're vulnerable, if you're young, if you're older, and have any respiratory or heart conditions.
Brigid Bergin: I want to bring some of our callers back into this conversation. We still have a completely full board. Let's go to Bill in Fort Lee, New Jersey. I think, Bill, you have a question about how you can protect yourself inside. Probably a good question for Nsikan. Welcome to WNYC and the Brian Lehrer Show.
Bill: Hello, everybody. Actually, it's a two-parter. I have central air conditioning, but I only have a number two MERV filter. Is that going to make things worse, because the particles are going to go through and it'll create turbulence, so any particles that have fallen to the ground will now be in the air? The second part is, if I tape on a second MERV filter over the vent, is that better than just having the one? Again, these are only number two MERVs.
Brigid Bergin: Well, that is a highly specific question, Bill, but Nsikan, if you want to do your best with what your team has reported on any guidance, we can point Bill towards.
Nsikan Akpan: Yes. I might ask that we get Bill's contact information because the MERV's specifications are pretty complicated to run through, but I can find that answer for him and send it to him.
Brigid Bergin: Okay, great.
Nsikan Akpan: It is a really interesting question.
Brigid Bergin: Bill, if you would just hang on a second, one of our screeners will get your information and we'll follow up with you since it sounds like your question was pretty specific. Let's go to Eric in Brooklyn. Eric, welcome to WNYC and the Brian Lehrer Show.
Eric Weltman: Hi there. My name is Eric Weltman. I am a Brooklyn-based senior organizer with Food Waterwatch. Today happens to be the last day of the legislative session up in Albany. We are in a climate emergency. These wildfires in Canada are literally fueled by climate change. We believe that Governor Hochul and Assembly Speaker Heastie need to act with more urgency in terms of preventing further climate disasters by, for example, passing the New York Heat Act, which would help move New York off fossil fuels. This is a climate emergency at the end of the day, and we need to take more action here in New York and across the nation to move New York off fossil fuels. New York Heat Act, in particular, would help wean us off of a fracked gas infrastructure that would end massive subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. Again, we need Governor Hochul and Speaker Heastie to take more urgent action on this climate emergency.
Brigid Bergin: Eric, thank you so much for your call. That legislative session actually got extended a day, so they're going to still be at it tomorrow, but you do raise a point that I think we've heard from other climate activists and people who support this legislation in general, that it's up to lawmakers to take some steps to create policies that might address these issues and not just deal with these isolated incidents. Liz, I know that one of the things that we heard come up during those briefings yesterday was a reference to unprecedented events or quick-moving events, but we've seen wildfires hit other parts of the country now for years. Do you think that there will be some scrutiny as to how prepared the city is for different kinds of climate emergencies going forward?
You did a lot of reporting about one of the flooding emergencies that hit the city when Hurricane Ida caused so much damage to portions of Queens. That was before this current administration, but it certainly points to the fact that we are going to be dealing with larger-scale climate-related incidents, and that, presumably, people are going to expect the city has some plans for them. Right?
Elizabeth Kim: Exactly. I think that that's the expectation is that after an event like this that-- the mayor said that there is no playbook for this, and he got a lot of heat for saying that because many people said there should be a playbook for this. I would imagine that he and his administration will then come up with a blueprint going forward on how they plan to handle this. Are there certain air quality ratings? If it hits a certain trigger, does that in fact, then mobilize the city into actions and certain alerts for the public? Even if he himself does not do it, I think that there will be other elected officials that will push him to do that. You have a Brooklyn Council Member, Lincoln Restler who was calling for an oversight hearing on the mayor's response. I think this will be a discussion for days if not weeks to come.
Brigid Bergin: I'm wondering, you've also done a lot of reporting on city workers and their push for remote work. It's been an issue in contract negotiations. I'm wondering how an event like this affects those conversations. Are you hearing from any of those folks saying something to the effect of, "This is why we have been pushing for this, the circumstances that the city needs to be able to adjust to so we can still do our jobs, but maybe do them in a different setting?"
Elizabeth Kim: It's very interesting. At his press conference last night, the mayor went out of his way to tell the public that essential workers for the city would still be working. I think he wants to send out the message that we're still working here. The mayor himself is-- I think he calls himself a seven-day-a-week-in-the-office guy. He's been very skeptical about remote work. He has conceded the city is in the middle of starting to launch a pilot where city workers can work two days a week from home, but yes, you could hear rumblings from city workers who were like, "Why can't we be allowed to work from home when you're telling other people to stay home?"
Brigid Bergin: Nsikan, I want to bring you back into this conversation. Yesterday on the Brian Lehrer Show, Brian spoke with a public radio meteorologist, Garett Argianas, about what's causing this weather pattern to persist. He talked about a stalled storm near Maine. Here's a little bit of how he described it.
Garett Argianas: With that stalled storm, nothing's moving along. Of course, in New York City, we know about traffic jams. Well, in this case, it's an atmospheric traffic jam, and nothing is moving along very quickly, and that's why we're in this persistent pattern.
Brigid Bergin: Nsikan, I know you're not a meteorologist. I know you know lots of things, but I'm wondering, what will you and your team be monitoring when it comes to the weather patterns in the environment in the days ahead. Is there any indication that things are going to be breaking anytime soon?
Nsikan Akpan: Yes, we're watching the airmass that's collected off the coast of-- Oh, sorry, off the east coast in the Atlantic. The New York City National Weather Service, they put out a message yesterday saying that they think that air mass is going to stick around through the weekend, which would keep forcing smoke and air from Ontario down towards us. I know I'm personally hoping that that's not the case [chuckles] and that it dissipates. The other thing to look out for is rain. Rain can help clear away smoke particles but I haven't seen much forecasted in the next couple of days. I think outside of those things and maybe some shifts in wind patterns, we might still be in this for a little while unless they can get those wildfires in Canada under control.
Brigid Bergin: Let's go to Kylie in Northern Virginia. Kylie, thanks so much for calling. Thanks for listening to The Brian Lehrer Show. What's it like in the air there?
Kylie: It's a little crazy down here. Most of my family's in New Jersey, and so yesterday they were talking about how as soon as you step outside, it just smells like someone's house burned down. Yesterday we had haze down here, but today we do have that same burnt smell. The alert here is at a level purple, which is the level I understand that means that basically, everyone's health is at risk, which got to my question because I'm hearing people outside my house who have their landscaping companies or the landscaping companies are out. I thought, what's the point of these alerts if we don't have a way to protect people who I'm sure would rather be inside, but maybe their employers or their circumstances-- Which I know you all have already discussed circumstances, but I don't understand why there's not some push for companies to not have non-essential people outside if the conditions are dangerous to people's breathing.
That's my question. I don't know if anyone can answer it, but that's my vent question.
Brigid Bergin: [chuckles] Well, Kylie, we thank you for listening and calling with your vent question. I'm not sure Liz or Nsikan if we can answer it explicitly, but I think she does raise some of the issues that we've seen both from-- We experienced throughout the COVID-19 pandemic where guidance shifted over time and went from being guidance to being requirements. I think right now, I wonder if, Nsikan, could there be a point when guidance related to an event like this could shift from just being guidance to becoming mandatory, becoming a requirement, or is it because the fact that this is not something that we are in control of, that humans are causing, can spread among themselves that that is why it would not become a requirement?
Nsikan Akpan: Yes, I think there's a question of whether or not there should be some automated alerts that just go out to everyone or just go out to news outlets when we cross certain thresholds with air quality. We have Amber Alerts, maybe it could be something that we just push to everyone's phone. I think on the flip side of that some folks might find that really pervasive. Maybe they would complain to the politicians, elected leaders who might be involved with installing some of those systems. I've had the exact same question all week, and also last week when we were seeing some of these issues that it would just be great if there was just something automated that just went out to people so you just knew, "Okay, I should grab my mask as I head out the door," or like, "Oh, let's turn the air purifier on." I think that's totally right.
Brigid Bergin: It's interesting, I noticed today that I got a Notify NYC alert, but I don't remember if I had received one sooner. Liz, did that come up during the briefings yesterday how the city was alerting people using the Notify NYC system at all?
Elizabeth Kim: The mayor really mostly focused on the tweets. [chuckles] That got some criticism because not everybody is on Twitter. I think when it comes to policy, that's where government really comes in because yes, government can't dictate what the private sector does, but it really has a huge amount of influence on what the private sector does. Oftentimes the private sector will take their cue from what government is doing. If government is saying, "We're going to shut down schools," for example, that's a signal. "Wow, this is pretty serious and maybe we should ask our employees who are non-essential to stay home if they can."
Brigid Bergin: Nsikan, I'm wondering if you can talk just briefly about what you are going to have on your list of things to watch, what you and your team will be monitoring going forward today and into tomorrow?
Nsikan Akpan: Yes, I'll answer that. I want to touch on that last point too with Notify NYC. I think it's a great system for alerting everybody, but you still have to sign up for it. Us in the newsroom, we have signed up for it, but has everybody citywide signed up for it? I think that's a question at play in terms of notifying everybody, and making sure everyone's informed. Yes, I think going forward, we're just going to be watching the air quality index just like everybody else.
Hoping that things improve, updating the public if they improve or if they get worse, watching those weather patterns again, in terms of rain, do we get some rain that can help at least pull or sup up some of this smoke particulate matter out of the air. Then yes, just checking to see if the airflows change in terms of smoke from Canada heading down towards us.
If I could do a quick plug, we're also having a health convening this afternoon. It's going to be virtual, but one of the topics, one of the panels is on just the particulate matter that we see daily in New York City just in terms of the emissions from tailpipes or from industrial facilities and how that affects different portions of the city worse than others. Air quality in the city has improved over the years, but you still have these hotspots, especially of particulate matter and those areas are probably worse off today, this week with this extra amount of smoke layered on top.
Brigid Bergin: Well, I want to thank both of my colleagues, WNYC and Gothamist reporter Liz Kim and WNYC, and Gothamist Health and Science Editor Nsikan Akpan. I know you guys will have busy days today but I'm so grateful that you could join us this morning and for all the work you've been doing, I know it's really important for our listeners to understand what's happening with this dynamic and changing situation. Thanks for joining us.
Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Brigid.
Nsikan Akpan: Thanks.
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