Smog in the UK
By Bethonie Waring
Smog caused havoc across the country, with
hundreds of people claiming sore throats, inflamed
eyes and other health problems, as the ‘perfect storm’
rolled into the UK, but all the politicians seemed to
care about was whose fault it was that David
Cameron couldn’t go for a run.
Maybe Amazon’s claim that it had seen a 15% rise in its sale of face masks suggests that
people were going a bit extreme over the increase in air pollution at the end of last week, but
the fact that Asthma UK reported that more than 80% of asthma sufferers used their inhalers
more than usual whilst the smog took over shows that something was defiantly wrong. Some
schools chose to keep asthma sufferers indoors whilst the air pollution levels were at level 9
in some places (officially “very high” according to Defra),
and some schools chose to keep everyone indoors to
reduce the risk of children having breathing problems.
Advice maybe didn’t make decisions any easier, with
conflicting public health information coming from the
government. A helpline encouraged “everyone” in areas
hit by