By Steve Rhodes
“After missing out on cleaner air during the coronavirus lockdown, the Chicago area just suffered its longest streak of high-pollution days in more than a decade,” the Tribune reports.
“Eight consecutive days of bad air swept through the region amid an emerging scientific link between exposure to pollution and COVID-19 death rates. Low-income, predominantly Black and Latino communities are being hit the hardest.
“Air quality has been so poor, the entire Chicago area ended up dirtier than notoriously smog-choked Los Angeles during the beginning of the month, according to a Chicago Tribune review of federal data.”
So I wasn’t imagining an unusual number of “unhealthy air” alerts on my phone’s weather app.
But why?
Satellites and land-based monitors tracked how unusually hot, sunny weather in the Midwest baked exhaust from automobile tailpipes, diesel engines and factory smokestacks into smog, also known as ground-level ozone.
Independence Day celebrations added to the problem. Stagnant air prevented soot pollution released by fireworks from dispersing, increasing the likelihood that even healthy people had trouble breathing during the holiday weekend.
Lake Michigan also played a role. Smog-forming pollutants – scientists call them precursors – often collect over the lake on sunny days, then drift inland during late afternoons.
“If you have precursors cooking up in this sunny zone and then the lake breeze pushes all of that air back toward the shore, it can make for a really crummy day,” said Patricia Cleary, a University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire chemist involved in a federal study of smog sources and trends in Lake Michigan states.
Go read the rest, there’s lots more.
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Last Call, The Saddest Call Of All
“Mayor Lori Lightfoot is ordering all bars, breweries, and restaurants that serve liquor to close at midnight, in an effort to further curb the spread of COVID-19 in Chicago,” CBS2 Chicago reports.
“The city already required bars, restaurants, and other businesses with on-site consumption liquor licenses to stop serving alcohol after 11 p.m. Now those establishments must close their doors entirely at midnight.”
It’s the right thing to do; I’m not sure bars and restaurants should even be open yet. It’s just sad. I’m a late-stayer when it comes to bars. I’ve never been able to figure out why anyone would leave a bar before they were legally required to do so.
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New on the Beachwood today . . .
Flex You
Pics, or it didn’t happen!
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The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #312
Will be recorded and posted on Saturday this week.
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ChicagoReddit
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ChicagoGram
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ChicagoTube
Millennium Park at Home: The Braided Janes & Jon Langford
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TweetWood
A sampling of the delight and disgust you can find @BeachwoodReport.
Trump complained on Hannity tonight that the media keeps reporting on coronavirus cases. He said, “All the time, ‘cases.’ And those cases get better. In most — most cases — in almost — I mean, literally, in most cases, they automatically cure. They automatically get better.”
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) July 10, 2020
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More than 1,000 TSA employees have tested positive for coronavirus https://t.co/TQL0b7xxOb
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) July 10, 2020
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Deep Mental State.
2 in Illinois https://t.co/3pitsRcrUw
— Rich Miller (@capitolfax) July 10, 2020
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I don’t know if I want to go to a Walgreens doctor.
Walgreens invests $1B to open hundreds of primary care clinics https://t.co/XSoEE6B35s via @grocerydive
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) July 10, 2020
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“He is going to be lucky if he makes $7.5 million this year.” https://t.co/iyqZZhyKHj
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) July 10, 2020
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The Beachwood Scrip Line: At the corner of sad and pathetic.
Posted on July 10, 2020