Another smog warning is in town
Another smog warning has been declared in town Monday through Wednesday.
From the start of the pandemic in March 2020 and for more than three years I never got sick, not even the merest head cold. But over the last month I’ve caught two things, first one mostly a nagging sore throat, and more recently a hacking cough that hasn’t entirely gone away.
Those may not be ascribable entirely to bad air quality, but no other variables have changed. It feels like the bad air has got into my lungs, and I don’t like it.
Update: La Presse says we’re experiencing smoke this time from forest fires out west.
EG 13:51 on 2023-07-17 Permalink
Damn. And I’d wanted to go outside to enjoy the summer during the next few days, because I hadn’t done that as much as I’d wanted to lately. You know, because of the smog.
Myles 14:32 on 2023-07-17 Permalink
I’ve had very similar experiences with respiratory illnesses this summer. I’m not looking forward to this and worse becoming the norm.
walkerp 14:45 on 2023-07-17 Permalink
Did you test yourself, Kate? Because I had similar symptoms and turned out it was covid. I’m still coughing.
Mark Côté 14:55 on 2023-07-17 Permalink
I noticed there was no mention of forest fires in this announcement. I wonder if it’s still the major contributing factor, or if it’s just “regular” city smog this time.
Kate 15:02 on 2023-07-17 Permalink
walkerp, I did, both times, and both times it came up negative, although my tests are oldish and I must admit I’m not a terrific lab tech.
walkerp 15:23 on 2023-07-17 Permalink
In any case, dark, dystopic times. If it’s not a zootropic disease going after your health, it’s the forest fires.
Tim S. 18:08 on 2023-07-17 Permalink
Alternatively, walkerp, the era from 1945-2020 in the western world was a kind of golden age, and we’re just slowly returning to normal human baseline.
Kate 18:27 on 2023-07-17 Permalink
I have thought similarly, Tim S.
War has always been lurking at the edges, but we didn’t have to worry about most other risks that humans have had to face for millennia.
I’ve read how polio was a nightmare in summertime in some cities in the mid 20th century, and my mother told me how mobile Xray machines were brought into her factory periodically to check who had tuberculosis, and always a few people were taken off work and ordered to go stay in a sanatorium in Ste‑Agathe.
I’m old enough to have had the smallpox vax and the oral polio vaccine, but never to have had actually to fear these things.
Having a pandemic take over our world was a warning most of us aren’t listening to. We are not masters of nature, not by a long shot.
walkerp 18:35 on 2023-07-17 Permalink
That may indeed be. The big difference is that while humans suffered in toil, deprivation and war for most of our history, we were not also taking the planet with us.
Chris 00:17 on 2023-07-18 Permalink
The planet will be fine walkerp. It has been through many mass extinctions before, the next one won’t be so different.
walkerp 07:59 on 2023-07-18 Permalink
Such a loser mentality.
Ian 11:33 on 2023-07-18 Permalink
To be fair it’s still nothing compared to the Devonian mass extinction. Tough time to be a trilobite.
Not sure what that has to do with anything though…
But as George Carlin once pointed out, “The planet’s going to be fine. It’s HUMANS that are f*cked”.
Chris 19:26 on 2023-07-18 Permalink
In case it was not clear, my point was exactly that of George Carlin.
Ian 19:31 on 2023-07-18 Permalink
I kind of thought so 😀
The full performance from 1992: https://youtu.be/Kmo8sh77G6Y