When it rains, it pours, right?

Well, when it’s a drought, and there are fires- we are all in a heap of trouble.

In general,  particulates in the air aggravate our immune system and terrorize our lungs.  And, it these blazing fires around the world were just trees, it would be tragic – and unhealthy.

But, cars, buildings, businesses are also being incinerated.   Which means, it’s not just ash that assaults our pulmonary system, but chemical residues- both the ones in our products- and the results of their incineration.  This is why so many of our brave firefighters and rescuers (or body retrievers) froi 9-11 succumbed to the worst kind of diseases.

It’s why our brave US Forest Service firefighters- who earn the paltry sum of $ 15 an hour (I had no idea how poorly the Federal government paid these well-trained, brave souls until this summer)- are succumbing to genitourinary cancers, pulmonary infections, and the like.  (You can find more information about the afflictions that our firefighters endure by visiting the San Francisco Firefighters Cancer Prevention Station website.)

A study, under the direction of Dr. Robert Harrison (UC San Francisco), The SFFD COVID-19 Antibody Study:  Preliminary Information, came across with some relatively good news for firefighters.  The San Francisco Fire Fighters – although generally exposed to populations that are COVID-19 positive- demonstrated much lower prevalence of antibodies than existed in the healthcare worker groups.  The healthcare workers positivity results range from 1 to 9%; the firefighters only had 3 positive results out of 1233 (0.24%).

But…

It turns out that those particulate matters from the wildfires in the West that have been altering the colors and hues of our skies from Oregon to New York- they are rendering us far more susceptible to COVID-19!   These wildfires produce copious quantities of fine particulate matter (PM2.5).   Such particulate matter ends up causing  premature death, asthma, COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), among other respiratory illnesses.  (Their presence in air also leads to from 85K to 200K excess deaths in the US alone.)

(First, we should recognize that we have other major particulate matter pollution issues across the USA.  A study published by Drs. CW Tessum (U Illinois), DA Paolella and JD Marshall (U Washington), SE Chambliss (UT Austin), JS Apte (UC Berkeley), and JD Hill (U Minnesota) made us aware that racial and ethnic minorities are extremely subject to such pollution assaults, mostly as a result of racist housing policy and the deliberate siting of major roads and factories amidst the poorer in our cities and counties.)

There is a new Harvard Study (TH Chan School of Public Health) [primary authors Drs. X Zhou and K Josey] that demonstrates that the particulate pollution from these fires makes it easier for us to contract COVID-19- and to succumb to its ravages.  (Please note that it is unclear if this is correlation or causation.   [Actually, it can never be causation- but it can be adjuvant or additive.])  This study examined the county- and daily-level PM2.5 pollution data, wildfire days, and the number of COVID-19 deaths and cases in 92 counties (95% of the population in Washington, Oregon, and California).  The researchers adjusted for factors such as weather, population size, social distancing, and mass gatherings.  They found that wildfire pollution augmented the cases and deaths from COVID-19- even up to 4 weeks post exposure.   (Cumulative numbers:  19700 instances of COVID-19 and 750 deaths.)

Another way climate change is going to get us.

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