186

why does my chest hurt rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 1 week ago by Catoblepas to c/196

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

There are roughly 13,000 acres on fire within 20 miles of me (and about 10 million other people). Fortunately since I have asthma we already have 2 air purifiers that are running full blast.

Probably the scariest part of how toxic the air is right now is that it looks absolutely clear outside. Without checking the weather I would have never known it was that bad.

top 8 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 1 week ago

Drill, baby, drill.

[-] PeachyMcPeachface 19 points 1 week ago

As a fellow asthma haver (it ain't easy being wheezy) I really hope you have access to an inhaler🙏

[-] Catoblepas 13 points 1 week ago

I do have one thankfully, but weirdly I’ve been mostly okay! I credit the air purifiers and not stepping a single foot outside today.

[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Sweet, inhaling deeply means ~20 free cigarettes' worth of, well, whatever gunk it may be. Cheap alternative though.

[-] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 week ago

Ahh, where i live its literally 10

[-] 5715@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago

What is the unit?

[-] Badabinski@kbin.earth 4 points 1 week ago

The unit is AQI (short for Air Quality Index). In the USA, AQI is the maximum value of a function run against measurements made over time for (any or all of) PM2.5, PM10, O3, SO2, and NOx. AQI is widely used, but the specific definition of air quality varies regionally. If some country or city has terrible levels of something other than what I mentioned earlier, it wouldn't make sense to use the same scale that the USA uses.

It's useful for us asthmatics because shit in the air is shit in the air. If I were especially sensitive to a particular chemical then I might need to dive into a specific AQI for just that chemical, or look at the actual metrics used to compute the AQI and adjust my air filtering needs accordingly.

EDIT: This is, quite frankly, a shit explanation. The Wikipedia article I linked has a great breakdown of how the AQI is calculated in various countries. I'd definitely recommend checking it out if you're curious.

[-] Catoblepas 3 points 1 week ago

For AQI? I’m not totally sure honestly, I think it’s a combination of particulate matter readings, ozone, carbon monoxide, and a few other chemicals. I don’t know exactly what math is going on to turn that into a number rating, though. I just know “don’t breathe this” when the number is that high 😂