Why the Air Quality Has Been So Bad Lately

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. For much of the last three years because of COVID, people have been advised to wear N95 quality masks in many circumstances when indoors. Well, today, we're being advised to wear those same high-quality masks outdoors, especially if you're a senior or have heart or lung conditions. That, of course, is because of this bizarre smokey state that we're all in around here right now.

Even if it's not making you sick, you can see it, you can feel it, you can smell it. The New York Times says you can even taste it, though I haven't noticed that part myself. We were going to save this topic for our climate story of the week for next week. We do those segments on Tuesdays, and the underlying issue seems likely to be climate change, but the immediate issue is how to live with this today, right now, and it's just too immediate to ignore. Here's NYU Professor of Environmental Public Health Sciences, Jaco Avanos on all things considered yesterday.

Jaco Avanos: Go easy on the jogging, go easy on the tennis, try to stay indoors.

Brian Lehrer: In a few minutes, we'll be joined live by an emergency medicine and disaster preparedness physician from the Columbia University Medical Center to answer your questions about the health implications of the smoke and how to protect yourself today. We'll begin first though with an explanation of the conditions themselves with public radio meteorologist Garett Argianas. He's heard regularly on Connecticut Public Radio, and the WAMC stations in the greater Albany and Western Massachusetts areas. Garett, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Garett Argianas: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners. If you have questions about the smoke, here's your chance to ask a meteorologist. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Folks, we also invite you to give us your own hyperlocal weather reports. What is it like right now on your block, wherever in our area you are? A Times article quoted someone saying that it smelt like burnt toast at first, now, it's like a campfire. Someone at the Yankee game last night was quoted saying, "It was like sitting in an old-school Weber grill."

Those are some people's descriptions. What's it like where you are? Taste, smell, feel, anything, or any questions for public radio meteorologist, Garett Argianas. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can also text your question or hyperlocal weather report to that same number. Garett, I saw that the air quality index hit 138 in New York City yesterday. A pretty unheard of number around here. Can you explain what the air quality index measures and what 138 means on that scale?

Garett Argianas: Well, Brian, the air quality index indicates essentially how polluted the air is. The scale starts at zero which is considered good air quality. As you go up in number, the air quality deteriorates. The air quality between 101 and 150 means the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups. For those who have respiratory conditions, such as asthma, or any other conditions that make breathing difficult, the air quality can certainly impact and make those conditions worse.

Now I'm looking at some of the latest in New York City this morning where we're in the red category, which is 151 to 200. That's considered unhealthy. That means those who even do not have respiratory condition can experience difficulty. Unfortunately, we're looking at for later today, out across Western New York, the air quality index now is very unhealthy between 201 and 300. That air and that smoke is forecast to move into the New York City area this afternoon. The air quality is expected to get worse as the day moves along.

Brian Lehrer: The Times reported that New York City as of last night had among the worst air quality in the world. Usually, we're not even in the worst 3,000 metro areas. What are the usual top few air pollution hotspots in the world, if you happen to know?

Garett Argianas: Certainly China comes to mind, in front of mind, where pollution is a major issue. Portions of India as well has significant issues with air quality.

Brian Lehrer: When I was in Beijing a few years before COVID, it was the first time I was over there. It was a novelty to see people walking down the street wearing masks. Now it's not such a novelty in this country, but my presumption was it was because of chronic smog conditions over there.

Garett Argianas: Exactly, right. In this case, of course, what we're dealing with is a little bit different because this is wildfire smoke that we're dealing with in New York City and across the Northeast. Often this time of year, we experience issues with the ground level ozone, that's usually what prompts these air quality alerts during the summertime.

That's more related to just pollution in general.

For example, exhaust from vehicles or from power plants and other chemical manufacturing that elevates the ground-level ozone levels. That's one of the issues where we talk about saying China or India, those types of pollution levels are related more to that more than the wildfires smokes. This is a bit of an anomaly for us here across the Northeast.

Brian Lehrer: These wildfires are in Canada, the Times says hundreds of separate wildfires, more than 400 fires, can you explain the extent of those wildfires and how usual or unusual they are in the regions of Canada where they're burning?

Garett Argianas: Well, wildfires in general are not unusual. Wildfires are part of a natural cycle. However, this year, the number of wildfires is greater than average. If you think back just about maybe four weeks or so there were wildfires across Western Canada and we dealt with that smoky haze around here. Of course, at that point, the smoke was 10s of 1000s of feet above us. We weren't breathing the smoke in. We were just noticing the change in the sky and how things look, kind of that milky appearance to the sky.

Then last week, we dealt with wildfires that were closer. Those were burning across Nova Scotia, there were also wildfires in New Jersey. We dealt with air quality issues close to the ground in that case. Now, though, number of fires across Quebec are quite high, and it's well above what's typical. That smoke is just blowing in as their wind is basically from north to south, so that wind direction funnels that smoke right into the New York City area.

Brian Lehrer: Why are those fires happening?

Garett Argianas: Well, again, some of these fires are part of the natural process but also a climate change is certainly playing a factor. With drier and hotter weather in general, wildfires are more likely. This is something that we're likely to deal with as you move ahead as the climate change continues to get worse.

Brian Lehrer: Can you explain how smoke this bad gets from there all the way to here without dissipating any more than it has?

Garett Argianas: In this case, it's really about the weather pattern. Often, we think about at this latitude weather moving from west to east, which is generally what happens but in this case, we have a blocking weather pattern, which means the jet stream, instead of moving kind of cleanly West to East has a lot of North and South variation. Right now, there's a large upper-level area of low pressure out across eastern Canada. If you think of, maybe picture a map of the Northeast and think of a circle of eastern Canada, that upper-level low spins counterclockwise.

We're on that edge of that upper level low, which is basically a wind direction that will take the smoke from Quebec, a little bit to the west, across the Great Lakes through Western New York into the Finger Lakes region, and then a little bit more from northwest to southeast across New York City. Essentially, the smoke is just being blown in by the wind, given the weather pattern that we're in.

Brian Lehrer: Some meteorologists are saying that there's a stall nor'easter off of Maine that's impeding the normal flow of the jet stream and that's part of what's causing the air from Ontario and Quebec to flow south instead of East as it more commonly does. Is that true in your estimation?

Garett Argianas: It is, yes. I mentioned the upper level low, which is the low-pressure 10s of 1000s of feet aloft. The term we use in Meteorology is that this storm is vertically stacked, meaning the upper-level low is essentially over that area of low pressure at the surface. 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. That's why we're in this persistent pattern.

Brian Lehrer: An atmospheric traffic jam. Maybe we need atmospheric congestion pricing. That's another show, but on that nor'easter. Nor'easter is essentially a cyclone or a storm that's like a hurricane. Some studies have noticed that hurricanes are stalling more and more. There are some questions about a connection to climate change. Is it possible that that's what's happened here or do nor'easters just stall sometimes?

Garett Argianas: Well, we want to be careful that a nor'easter is a cyclonic storm, but it's not a hurricane. The structures are totally different. Just wanted to lay that out there. A hurricane is a warm forest storm that comes out of the tropics, but certainly sometimes these storms do stall. If there's really nothing to kick them along, kind of a push from the jet stream, for example, then they can stall and they really have no motivation to move.

Often in fact, if there is no jet stream pushing the storms along, they can actually retrograde, which means instead of moving from west to east, like we often think, they actually naturally on their own without any push will move from east to west. That's the projection with this upper-level low over the next couple of days that the upper-level low will actually back into New England a little bit. It's kind of a unique situation. It tends to happen more in the fall and the spring, the times of year where the cold and warm air are doing battle because the cold and warm don't mix very well, they kind of fight it out.

Brian Lehrer: A climate change connection to that happening more frequently, or is that too speculative for you to know?

Garett Argianas: I would say that's too speculative. It's for me to really be able to draw that connection exactly because these kinds of stalled weather patterns have happened for eons.

Brian Lehrer: Keith in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Keith.

Keith: Hi, Brian. Love your show. I grew up in West Wilford, New Jersey, and just a couple of months ago we had about a thousand acres of woods burned down there, and that's only 50 miles north of New York City. I was just wondering what exactly is the difference, because back then we did not have these types of conditions.

Brian Lehrer: Any answer to that Garett?

Garett Argianas: Again, brush fires have always been a thing especially in the springtime, in the northeast, as we move from winter, there's a lot of dry brush around, for example. We do tend to see brush fires this time of year. I think the bigger concerns as we move ahead and with climate change especially, is that we're seeing more extremes. While we are always going to have stormy weather, it seems like we have more of these extended periods of dry weather, which can lead to drought, of course. On the flip side of things, when we get heavy rain, we see more frequency of these high precipitation events.

Of course, you think about the horrible flooding in New York City with some of those torrential rains that we've had recently. The extremes are becoming a little bit more common, and that's certainly going to be a concern moving ahead because with extended periods of dry weather and dry brush and extended drought, certainly that does raise the concern that brush fires might become more and more frequent as we move down the road.

Brian Lehrer: Another way to put this, the Times quotes the UN report just last year, concluding that climate change would further intensify what the UN called the Global Wildfire Crisis. I don't know if you, as a meteorologist used the word crisis or not, but it sounds like you have seen the number of wildfires increase over a period of years, which would suggest a longer-term trend and a connection to climate change.

Garett Argianas: It sure does. A lot of the research has been out west where the wildfires tend to be bigger and more frequent, but certainly, we can tie connections to what's happening locally here across the northeast too.

Brian Lehrer: Tony in Suffolk County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tony.

Tony: Hey. How's it going? I was just curious if this has any effect on water quality or plant life. Someone that has crops in his backyard, I'm just making sure does this have any effect on, the air quality, has any effect on how the plants are doing?

Brian Lehrer: Do you happen to know? I'd throw in animals as well since he said wildlife.

Garett Argianas: Yes, certainly water quality and plants are not my area of expertise, so I don't want to speculate necessarily along that level. This particulate matter is about 2.5 micrometers and so the particles, you can't really see them individually, but you can certainly notice them with that haze in the air. Speaking of wildlife though, just like people, the wildlife, they're breathing the same air, and again, I'm not a veterinarian or a doctor, but certainly, I imagine that with the concerns for humans in breathing this air, there would be concerns for anybody or anything breathing this air.

Brian Lehrer: He is, listeners, if you're just joining us, a meteorologist, public radio meteorologist, Garett Argianas, as we're taking your questions and he's answering some of mine on the conditions that are leading to the smoke around here. In a few minutes, we'll talk to a doctor about some of the health effects and health precautions that you could be taking. Let's take another phone call for our meteorologist guest, Steve in Park Slope, you're on WNYC. Hi, Steve.

Steve: Hi, Brian. Good morning. My question is about the hyper-local variation. I see that the EPA has, I don't know, 8 or 10 monitors around the city, and I'm comparing those numbers with my own little $80 at-home air quality monitor. I'm wondering if there might be any parts of the city that are experiencing higher levels of particulate matter concentration from this, or if the monitors that are out there are doing a good job of capturing all of that local variation?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's a good question. How much hyper-local variation would there be in a condition like this?

Garett Argianas: Oh, in this case, there's not much. I'm looking at some of the latest data here, and pretty much the entire city right now is in that red unhealthy stage of the air quality index. It might vary slightly block to block or area to area, but in this case, it really looks like the entire city is just engulfed in this cloud of wildfire smoke. As I mentioned a little while ago, it's likely to get worse later in the day as some thicker and more concentrated smoke rotates in from Western New York.

Brian Lehrer: Does he have the number right? If you happen to know, are there eight air quality monitoring stations in all of New York City, and is that a sufficient number, if that's the right number in your opinion?

Garett Argianas: You know what, to be honest with you, I don't know the exact number. I'm just looking quickly on a map here right now, so I don't have an account at hand, but it looks like the sites are located all around the city and back into New Jersey too. As I mentioned, they're all pretty much showing red. In this case, this is a fairly large-scale situation. Certainly, where the more hyper-local monitors are of greater use would be a case where there might be a localized event of some kind.

Maybe some type of chemical spill or maybe more concentrated pollution due to maybe traffic congestion or maybe a power plant nearby. That's when we tend to see more variety when it comes to the air quality index, but in this case, it's pretty much smoke wall to wall all across the tri-state area.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, in addition to your questions, remember, we're inviting you to give us your own hyper-local weather reports. What's it like right now on your block, wherever in our area you are. Literally, what does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? Some people say they can taste it. Harry in Forest Hills has a hyper-local observation, I think. Hi, Harry. You're on WNYC.

Harry: Hey. How are you doing? Yes, last night I went out briefly. I was tired of being in, and I took a look at the moon and I thought I was looking at a moon on another planet. It was like a super orange. I imagine all the particles acted like a filter and filtered out all the other colors. When I was indoors from the time I got up till when I went out in the afternoon, everything sort of had a yellowish cast to it. Historically, I think it was the year or maybe two years before the pandemic, we had one or two days of this with the fires from, I think it was Oregon or Washington state.

Brian Lehrer: That's right. Those drifted all the way over here to some degree. Anything you can say about how it affects the perception of the air or the moon with respect to color, Garett?

Garett Argianas: Oh, absolutely. Harry, certainly, I noticed the same thing yesterday. I said to a friend of mine, "It feels like I'm on a different planet." It was just this eerie sense with that yellow tint to the sky and the unusual yellow color to the sun. What happens is the smoke tends to filter out certain wavelengths of light. When the sun is fairly high in the sky, which it is midday, basically the shorter wavelengths of visible light are filtered out. The blues and the violets go away, and you tend to see more of that yellow color. Then as the sun gets closer to the horizon, ends up going through a thicker layer of smoke and atmosphere.

You could think of it, it's essentially geometry, but if you were to say, cut a sandwich and you cut it up and down vertically, you go through a certain amount of length of bread. If you cut it on the diagonal, you go through a longer amount of bread. It's the same idea as the sun gets closer to the horizon, it goes through a thicker layer of smoke, a thicker layer of atmosphere, and that even yellow light doesn't make it through anymore.

It's more of that orange and red light that gets through. Similar with the moon, as the shorter wavelengths of light are filtered out the blues, the violets, the greens, and that's why we're seeing more of that orange and red look to the sun and to the sky.

Brian Lehrer: Rick in Hicksville, you're on WNYC. Hi, Rick.

Rick: Hi. We were planning a vacation up to Nova Scotia in mid-August, and we're thinking twice about it now due to the wildfires and the air conditioning up there. Is that a bad idea to go there in mid August?

Brian Lehrer: Do you think this will still be going on? I did read that it's expected to be a more wildfire-intensive summer in Canada in general than usual. I don't know if they really know that far in advance of its trip is planned for August, but what can you say? How long term can you do a weather forecast, Mr. Meteorologist?

Garett Argianas: To do a weather forecast two months out is challenging enough and a wildfire forecast is even more challenging. There's really no way to say how things will play out in August in Nova Scotia or anywhere else across Canada in terms of wildfires. These things can start through a natural process, say like a lightning strike, for example. Unfortunately, sometimes they are started by people either being careless, but maybe some intent, which I hate to say too, but there's really no way to say how things are going to be in August in Nova Scotia. It would be like trying to predict is a hurricane going to hit a certain area in September and you can't make a prediction that far ahead.

Brian Lehrer: Before you go. We bring in our doctor guest to talk about health effects and health precautions. I see that besides being a public radio meteorologist, you're the public address announcer for the Little League World Series, is that right?

Garett Argianas: That is correct. Since 2006, I'm one of several.

Brian Lehrer: That is awesome. I ask partly because I see that while the Yankees played in the Bronx last night in the Smoky Hazes, the Oswego Little League in upstate New York near to Canada has canceled its games for now for the kids. Have you ever seen that before in New York state?

Garett Argianas: I don't recall air quality being the reason for postponing a little league game. It's certainly a possibility, but in this case, I mean, this certainly is a pretty extreme circumstance for us here across New York and all of the Northeast, so it's certainly something of note.

Brian Lehrer: Garett Argianas is a public radio meteorologist. He's heard regularly on Connecticut Public Radio and the WAMC stations in the greater Albany and Western Massachusetts area. Garrett, thanks very much for your time today. I know you obviously have a lot to do today of all days. Thank you.

Garett Argianas: All right, you're welcome, Brian. Great to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Coming up next Part 2, as we go from ask a meteorologist to ask a disaster preparedness and emergency medicine doctor, our phones are now open for smoke condition questions relevant to him at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We can keep taking your hyper-local weather reports too, more to come. Joining us to answer your medical questions about the smoke is Dr. Christopher Tedeschi, professor of Emergency Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center, and the Director of Disaster Preparedness there, Dr. Tedeschi. Thanks for a few minutes this morning. Welcome to WNYC.

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: Thanks. Thanks so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Our lines are full with listeners who want to ask you questions. Listeners will get to you in a minute, but let me ask you first, since you're an emergency medicine physician, I don't know if you've been in the ER itself this week, but are you seeing ER visits being caused by the smoke?

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: It's hard to tell. I'm actually in the ER this morning, so I'm eager to see if we do have some people come in with complaints related to the smoke. I wouldn't be surprised if we do. Certainly, we expect when the smoke conditions get to where they are now, we see people oftentimes with exacerbations of respiratory illnesses like asthma or emphysema or COPD. We do know that when there are smoke conditions, ER visits for cardiac conditions can increase as well.

Brian Lehrer: Why cardiac conditions? Obviously, it would exacerbate lung conditions. I think that seems intuitive to people, but why the heart?

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: That's a good question. I think oftentimes we just see a stress on the cardiovascular system whenever respiratory or atmospheric conditions like this occur. Oftentimes, remember this happens a lot in very hot weather, which is also a strain for folks with cardiac problems. Any time that your heart is working harder to get the oxygen it needs, there's certainly a risk of some adverse events.

Brian Lehrer: I'm hearing that people with harder lung conditions or who are seniors even without specific health conditions, should wear N95-level masks if they're outdoors today. Are you advising that?

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: I think it really depends on your risk. We're in that air quality index zone where we worry about people that are sensitive to the particulate matter in the air. By all means, folks that are over 65, or again, those with respiratory or cardiac conditions should take extra precautions. If that means needing to be outside for a prolonged period of time or certainly working outside or exerting yourself outside, a mask like an N95 mask is a reasonable option.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Bill in Manhattan, a public school teacher he says. Hi, Bill, you're on WNYC.

Bill: Hey, how's it going? I'm an NYC public school teacher in Manhattan, and I wanted to mention how irresponsible it is for the NYC DOE to hold school today. Currently, my classroom smells a lot like smoke. The staff sent a really ambiguous email this morning that said, student time outside should be limited, and then outdoor lunch is going to be available outside, but we're supposed to limit the vigorous activity, vigorous physical activity of teenagers. As a high school teacher, it's impossible for us to limit vigorous physical activity, and we should at least have masks in the homerooms or some sort of announcement that we give to the kids.

Brian Lehrer: My understanding is the Department of Education has canceled all outdoor activities in the school system for today.

Bill: My school has decided to hold them, which I don't understand why that's okay.

Brian Lehrer: Okay, well, that's interesting. You are suggesting that school be canceled altogether. Could you describe further the conditions that you were starting to mention in your classroom?

Bill: First of all, the debacle with the air filters that happened during COVID is still real. There's no ventilation in these rooms. When I came in this morning, typically it smells like a dank old building from the '30s. It actually smelled like smoke in my room, and there's just clueless people walking around not knowing what's going on. My kids had no idea that this was the condition outside, and when I went into one of the bathrooms here just recently, it smelled like a wildfire in the bathroom. I'm not exaggerating that at all, smells like a campfire.

Brian Lehrer: Well, thank you for checking in. It's disturbing Dr. Tedeschi, of course, it's a difficult policy question which we faced during Covid for other reasons, which is worse or safer for the kids in this case because of these conditions to keep them home from school or to have them in school as long as they're staying indoors.

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: Yes, I think it's a great question. I was surprised myself this morning to wake up and find that my kids' school had canceled all outdoor activities. I think you have to look at it from the perspective of some of those kids that might be at greater risk from these particulates, kids with asthma, kids with other underlying conditions. I think the caller makes a great point about really the need for some plan thought about ahead of time for when conditions like this happen.

We've talked a lot in the last couple years about excessive heat and excessive heat plans and trying to come up with a plan on the morning of is never the best idea. Whether or not it's better to keep kids at home is a tough question. Lots of kids have a very safe place at school, and I understand that air quality in schools is really, really variable but I think to find that middle ground somewhere and truly limit outdoor activities and unfortunately maybe cancel outdoor recesses and that sort of thing. Maybe a smart first step, but again, it speaks to the need really to come up with more systematized plans for stuff like this.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and it's a policy question and an analysis question as to what kids are going to do if they're home from school and have to occupy themselves or they going to wind up exposing themselves more. They've made the decision they've made, school is on, but outdoor activities are supposed to be canceled. That's the New York City Department of Education. I presume it's similar in all the other local school districts. To stay on children for a minute, obviously, kids who have asthma or other lung conditions are at greater risk. Does it vary by age at all in general? Are the littler kids pre-k, kindergarten for second grade, more at risk from effects from this smoke than older kids, or not so much?

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: I think the smaller kids and the school-aged kids are probably a little bit of increased risk. Really, it depends on the severity of asthma and how well you're able to control that asthma. Lots of kids with asthma need to be in places where the air is obviously filtered or safe and that sort of thing. I would worry about the younger kids. I would worry about kids that don't have a safe indoor place to go, whether that means good air filters or air conditioning. Certainly, I would worry about kids that live in neighborhoods that are hotter, have greater heat indexes, and less fresh air to get away from all this stuff.

Brian Lehrer: Listener reports, "I just came down from upstate where we biked the Erie Canal for five days. The last two days, very heavy winds, gusting at 40 miles per hour slammed us blowing smoke away. As we came down from Syracuse on Amtrak, the sky got hazier and eye irritation and coughing started for all of us below Hudson Station. Today's pollution is the worst I've experienced in New York City since 9/11 days." Writes that listener.

Another one writes, "I'm in Middle Island, Suffolk County. FYI. I'm not sure if the haze here is just a product of the clouds today, but I'm surprised to be getting occasional whiffs of smoke, as a general rule, because I'm roughly midpoint between the sound of the Atlantic and the air quality is usually rather good." That's an example of how extreme it is. If you're out there, Long Island is not that long, north to south between the Atlantic and the sound, and even there they're experiencing it.

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: It's miserable. We're really not used to this so much here on the East Coast in the same way that maybe people in the West are. Although, I'm afraid that these extreme events may be something that become frankly more common in the wake of more intense and bigger forest fires happening over the last several years. Certainly, in the wake of climate change. We know that the health effects of wildfire smoke can be seen hundreds of miles away sometimes. I'm certainly not surprised that people in places that generally enjoy pretty good air quality are finding that this is a really big difference.

Brian Lehrer: Syd, in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Syd.

Syd: Oh, hi. My question is, I've been reading about all of the advice of how to mitigate bad health effects saying stay inside. That advice for people who live in an apartment with central air, that's maybe filtered, that's good. I live in an old tenement apartment and the only air we get in the apartment is from the windows. We always keep all the windows open. I'm not really sure what's the best thing to do for people who live in older units.

Brian Lehrer: You don't have window air conditioners in your case?

Syd: We have a window air conditioner, but one is not really hot enough for an air conditioner, but I saw advice that that's not good because it might trap bad things inside.

Brian Lehrer: Bringing in the air from the outside. I saw advice Dr. Tedeschi, so maybe you can straighten this out for everybody. That was almost the opposite of that. It was like, especially if you have a kid with asthma at home, let's say, or an adult with a lung problem, even if it's not hot enough for air conditioner use, as a general rule with this particular temperature, it's a good idea to keep it on because it does actually clean the air but I don't know. That's the opposite of what the caller is hearing. Can you clear that up?

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: That's a tough question. First of all, I think the caller makes a great point by pointing out that some folks that are affected by smoke conditions like this and environmental conditions like this more than others. Agreed, if you are in a well-filtered central air environment, you're far less at risk than someone that maybe doesn't have access to air conditioning. It's difficult to say what the safest thing to do is.

I would suggest a window air conditioner may be a good idea to filter some of those particulates with the idea that most of the filters and window air conditioners are not quite sufficient to handle these really small particulates that the wildfire smoke is composed of. Oftentimes these window air conditioners have an option where you can switch it to recirculate the indoor air rather than pull it from the outside. If that's a possibility, I think that might be helpful.

Brian Lehrer: Brit is going to report from Weehawken on conditions there, I think. Hi, Brit, you're on WNYC.

Brit: Hi. Am I here? Am I on?

Brian Lehrer: You are here. You are on.

Brit: Hi. We heard about the air quality and we looked at our Yahoo app and we got the numbers. There was a little vague air quality difference, but nothing huge until about three o'clock or four o'clock yesterday afternoon when I stepped out. It smelled like there was a fire, maybe a block away, and the air was yellowish gray and the sun was this bright orange circle that I watched get covered over a horror movie with smog. Then the city disappeared and my throat started-- I don't have any extenuating circumstances.

My throat just, I felt something that was different. There weren't many people out but the people who were out were acting normal, which I thought was odd. There was actually a runner, a lone oblivious runner jogging through this mess. I've never seen anything like it. The air quality on Yahoo said the same thing as it had in the morning, despite this huge difference the air that you could see. I thought it was onus of the lack of knowledge people didn't react. The people who were out were acting as if nothing was different, even though I could see the air. I thought that was really odd. My question is, are there any lasting effects if you don't have extenuating circumstances?

Brian Lehrer: First of all, it sounds like you're describing the movie, Don't Look Up, but on the longer-term effects, if you're not feeling anything right now, how could you answer that as a doctor?

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: I think that's a tough question that we probably don't have any great answers for. I think it's important as your caller points out that even those of us without severe underlying conditions feel these effects. Your eyes get watery, your throat gets itchy, you might cough a little bit. Certainly, those are more transient effects. It's hard to say if there are long-term effects from these small particles in short exposures like hopefully we'll be experiencing here, but there certainly are some studies that look at people who do wildland firefighting, firefighters that are exposed year after year. Even in those healthy firefighters, they see some decline in lung function over time.

Brian Lehrer: We're all bracing for the question that I don't know that there's an answer to, which is what if this goes on because they say it could be a bad summer generally for wildfires in Canada with the possibility of more days like this here.

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: I think that we have to probably come to terms with the fact that certainly, like we've seen out West over the last few years, wildfires are becoming more intense and they're becoming more common. We need to come up with a systematized plan to address that, understand that it's a climate-driven process, and certainly, take measures as a policy measure, like you mentioned, to protect the people that are most vulnerable to those effects.

Brian Lehrer: Since you are the emergency preparedness director at the Columbia Medical Center in addition to an emergency medical physician, any other policy recommendations that you would make for the local government?

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: I think we have to just understand that we want to mitigate the effects of this across the board for all of our population. That means certainly as this is associated with hot weather, not only facilitating things like cooling centers and programs that enable people to get air conditioners at low cost or free of cost, but making sure people know about those programs.

One of the things that people should probably be in touch with is the Notify NYC program where you can get these messages and notifications pushed out to you, and certainly, some good advice when it's hot or when air conditions are bad. Again, we need to mitigate risk going forward because I think we're going to probably see a lot more of these effects in the coming years. If it's not this year, it may be next year.

Brian Lehrer: I know you got to go. Let me ask you one off-topic question first.

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: Sure.

Brian Lehrer: Have you been seeing an uptick in COVID visits to the ER? Those reports are in the news of an uptick noted in wastewater samples at the treatment plants around the city. Are you seeing it in hospital visits?

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: Anecdotally, I think it's simmering along. There's certainly a lot of data out there. We're seeing a lot of other viral respiratory illnesses as well. The COVID numbers are percolating along and I'm hoping we're not waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Brian Lehrer: Dr. Christopher Tedeschi, professor of Emergency Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center and the Director of Disaster Preparedness there. Thank you so much for joining us today. I know you're busy and you've given a lot of people a lot of good information. Thanks a lot.

Dr. Christopher Tedeschi: Pleasure. Thanks for having me.

 

 

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