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SCIENTISTS IN CHINA have likened the current toxic air pollution to a nuclear winter.
Beijing – and much of the northern provinces – has been engulfed in thick smog for the past week, with levels so high that the World Health Organisation has described it as a crisis.
The city’s official reading for PM 2.5 (small airborne particles which easily penetrate the lungs and have been linked to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths) stood at 501 micrograms per cubic metre this afternoon.
The WHO’s recommended safe limit is just 25.
The situation improved somewhat today with readings falling to 100 in some places.
The capital is on its sixth day of an ‘orange’ smog alert (the second highest on a scale). According to reports, the air tastes gritty and visibility is down to just a few hundred metres.
As residents rushed to buy face masks, China’s biggest online seller began to run out of stock.
Of the 29 models of face-masks provided by US industrial and equipment supplier 3M’s flagship store on Tmall.com, a business-to-consumer shopping platform, 26 were sold out or unavailable on Wednesday.
Residents have been asked to remain indoors. Many schools, fearing for their pupils’ health, have also kept their doors locked during class and break times. One school shut down completely, despite education authority instructions.
“Due to the city’s air quality forecast… the junior high section will continue to use the online study and question and answer model on February 26,” the Affiliated High School of Peking University said in a statement.
Following an interview with Bernhard Schwartlander, the WHO representative in China, ABC News in Australia reported that the smog is threatening crops because of the lack of sunlight, which is causing a slowdown in plant photosynthesis.
“Of course, on days where pollution levels reach or even exceed the scale we are very concerned and we have to see this as a crisis,” he said.
“There’s now clear evidence that, in the long term, high levels of air pollution can actually also cause … lung cancer.”
Much of the smog has been caused by emissions from coal-burning power stations.
President Xi Jinping paid a rare visit to one of Beijing’s smog-hit streets Tuesday – without a face-mask – drawing praise from Internet users for his latest apparent attempt to portray himself as close to ordinary citizens.
One widely shared online headline read: “Breathing the same air, sharing the same fate”.
All pics: PA; Additional reporting by AFP
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CV-19 is claiming a lot of people and talents. What an era in human history. Sad days ahead when we finally count our dead. :-(
RIP. Hugely talented, Fountains of Wayne have some great songs and albums, welcome interstate managers is a cracker!
We should all play Staceys Mom.. definitely a throwback tune, to honour the memory of the man.
@Rochey77: Moderate your language, I, too thought Stacey’s Mom was a song.
@Rochey77: The actress that played stacey’s mom was married to mini me from Austin powers.
@Damien: no she wasn’t, she was married to Rod Stewart and she’s still alive? Am I missing something or is this thread just full of inaccuracies?
@Damien: Stacys Mom…..https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Hunter
Very much alive and kicking
@King B: oops. Got that one mixed up
@Damien: no worries bud, either way I’m sure we can agree that Stacey’s mom most definitely had it going on.
The elephant in the room when it comes to Covid19 deaths is he was a lifetime smoker, which is an underlying condition. RIP.
@Peter Leonard: being a smoker isn’t an “underlying condition” though is it?
@Jazz Buckler: ok let me re phrase it. Smoking make you more susceptible to dying from Covid 19 https://ash.org.uk/media-and-news/press-releases-media-and-news/health-secretary-it-is-abundantly-clear-that-smoking-makes-the-impact-of-a-coronavirus-worse/
@Jazz Buckler: no, but buggered lungs from a lifetime of it is, or are you taking the smoking industry line on this?
@Jazz Buckler: I’m sure the virus might not care if it’s a condition or not. Alcoholism is a disease, Smoking is also a disease.. whatever way it’s spun that it’s a human right or something like that. it’s a condition and a reason why so many young people are dead in Italy and Spain.
I thought 2016 was bad for artists dying this is going to blow that out of the water.
Crazy ex girlfriend would not have been the same without this guy, such a talented music writer.
One~der……..hanks is still high on meds.
@Stan Kowalskis: read the article, that was the name of a band in a movie they were both involved in. How’s your prescription?
@Stan Kowalskis: watch the movie, its really good!
Schlesinger wasn’t the singer he was the bass player/songwriter. Do your research!
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