They even found that parents waiting to pick up kids at schools with their ICE engines running increased PM2.5 inside the entire building by orders of magnitude.
This data helped the kids teach their parents to stop their engines when waiting outside the school in order to help their asthmatic classmates.
The transition to EV is going to have a positive impact on people’s health and make city life better.
I've apparently never had asthma in my life, until I moved to Sydney, Australia for a while.
It's a city which _loves_ cars.
I used to cycle about 20 minutes to the office, the view was beautiful but the traffic was horrendous. I used to wheeze and struggle with breathing a lot more than usual. The doctor diagnosed me with "seasonal asthma" and gave me a ventolin prescription, which I've never felt the need to refill since leaving.
The doctor told me there was some phenomenon which made the air pollution worse, something about the reflection of the water from the harbor ? I wish I could remember what it was called.
I come from a part of the US with fairly severe air pollution (2cd or 3rd worst in country). And asthma is a huge problem there, much so more than elsewhere. It is fairly obvious that the air pollution is the cause of the problem. Perhaps we should differentiate between the causes of the disease, and the hazards that trigger asthma attacks.
Pollution was down. Stress was down. People staying at home means cleaner houses. Sharp temperature changes were down... probably, you'd miss the commute big ups and downs but also miss the office climate control. Peoples lives were mostly more controlled, far less variance.
And viruses were down.
> The ensuing months, to everyone’s surprise, turned into “this beautiful year,” Lawson told me. Scarlett hasn’t had a single asthma attack. Not a single visit to the ER. Nothing. She’s breathing so much better,
This doesn't fit with viruses, wouldn't lack of viruses only account for severe ER attacks that happen during a few scattered periods, not the whole year. It will be a mix, but 80:20, it should be one big thing.
I certainly noticed this - over the last year I've gone from using reliever inhalers several times a week to not needing them for months.
I did also start a new medication, Montelukast, around the time of the first lockdown, so it could conceivably be due to that in my case - but not having a chest infection at all for the last 18 months whereas I used to get one a year or so has been lovely.
* I totally read this backwards sorry. But I'll keep the relevant part about different steroid and my mistake below.
maybe also check out a Ciclesonide inhaler (alvesco, another steroid) which has helped me a lot in my cardio. I can get that last 5-10% into my lungs and don't have those tiny wheezes at peak respiration.
And I'll make a note of that drug for the future thanks!
--
I got on steroids last year. Had huge increase in use of albuterol over the last 2 years. For like a decade i barely used anything, inhaler sat in the bottom of my climbing bag.
I'm in Denver, really bad pollution and the fire smoke is literally unlivable at its worst.
Do you think this was largely due to wearing a mask? Whether a mask would block a virus particle is debatable but even cheap masks are effective against larger particulates such as pollen, dust, dander, etc.
When I was a kid my neighbor always wore a mask while he was cutting his lawn. He had asthma that was pretty easily triggered and he said it made a big difference.
I wonder how much impact the reduced pollution due to reduced traffic during the lockdowns and increased remote work later had on the study subjects, even if they were indoors.
Irceline publishes PM2.5 stats for Belgium. Here's [1] a pretty little chart with the annual mean PM2.5 concentration. If you switch between 2020 and 2019, the difference seems pretty small. Same for PM10 and Black Carbon. If the pandemic had a big impact on air quality, that effect seems to have skipped Belgium at least. It's a shame there's no similar dashboard for viruses and allergens.
Surprised not to see exercise listed. It’s a common trigger for asthma attacks, especially in cold dry air, and I bet there were pretty big changes in exercise patterns for a lot people during the pandemic.
There has been the hypothesis that it’s actually bad ventilation in schools and offices causing the asthma related problems. One thing to check before choosing a school for the kids.
mensetmanusman|4 years ago
There has been awesome citizen science work going on helping people understand the direct link between anything that emits smoke and asthma attacks: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.1315
They even found that parents waiting to pick up kids at schools with their ICE engines running increased PM2.5 inside the entire building by orders of magnitude.
This data helped the kids teach their parents to stop their engines when waiting outside the school in order to help their asthmatic classmates.
The transition to EV is going to have a positive impact on people’s health and make city life better.
bamboozled|4 years ago
It's a city which _loves_ cars.
I used to cycle about 20 minutes to the office, the view was beautiful but the traffic was horrendous. I used to wheeze and struggle with breathing a lot more than usual. The doctor diagnosed me with "seasonal asthma" and gave me a ventolin prescription, which I've never felt the need to refill since leaving.
The doctor told me there was some phenomenon which made the air pollution worse, something about the reflection of the water from the harbor ? I wish I could remember what it was called.
It's anecdotal but that was my experience.
ADSSDA|4 years ago
jonnycomputer|4 years ago
aaron695|4 years ago
Pollution was down. Stress was down. People staying at home means cleaner houses. Sharp temperature changes were down... probably, you'd miss the commute big ups and downs but also miss the office climate control. Peoples lives were mostly more controlled, far less variance.
And viruses were down.
> The ensuing months, to everyone’s surprise, turned into “this beautiful year,” Lawson told me. Scarlett hasn’t had a single asthma attack. Not a single visit to the ER. Nothing. She’s breathing so much better,
This doesn't fit with viruses, wouldn't lack of viruses only account for severe ER attacks that happen during a few scattered periods, not the whole year. It will be a mix, but 80:20, it should be one big thing.
philjohn|4 years ago
I did also start a new medication, Montelukast, around the time of the first lockdown, so it could conceivably be due to that in my case - but not having a chest infection at all for the last 18 months whereas I used to get one a year or so has been lovely.
tejtm|4 years ago
[0] https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-r...
dillondoyle|4 years ago
maybe also check out a Ciclesonide inhaler (alvesco, another steroid) which has helped me a lot in my cardio. I can get that last 5-10% into my lungs and don't have those tiny wheezes at peak respiration.
And I'll make a note of that drug for the future thanks!
-- I got on steroids last year. Had huge increase in use of albuterol over the last 2 years. For like a decade i barely used anything, inhaler sat in the bottom of my climbing bag.
I'm in Denver, really bad pollution and the fire smoke is literally unlivable at its worst.
throwawayboise|4 years ago
When I was a kid my neighbor always wore a mask while he was cutting his lawn. He had asthma that was pretty easily triggered and he said it made a big difference.
belltaco|4 years ago
kurthr|4 years ago
elric|4 years ago
[1] https://www.irceline.be/en/air-quality/measurements/particul...
briefcomment|4 years ago
snowwrestler|4 years ago
MengerSponge|4 years ago
I imagine that keeping schoolchildren home from those schools would substantially help their respiratory health.
deregulateMed|4 years ago
If kids can learn by themselves, this could change everything.
But currently my kid likes unboxing videos and nothing else. School is forced variety and social skills..
edejong|4 years ago
enlyth|4 years ago