Originally Posted by
jiejie
These are insane numbers. I can only remember it getting this bad (actually over 1000) last year on the evening of Chinese New Year. Glad I'm not there right now. This is seriously dangerous pollution even for healthy adults.
Yes, and no. THere will be a large excess of death this week due to the pollution, and that is a function of large population in Beijing and the very vulnerable people succumbing. However, crunching the numbers (someone else did, but I vagely trust it), even breathing the air the last 24hrs was no 'worse' than smoking 3-5 cigarettes -- which rather puts it all into perspective.
People who go clubbing in Beijing every week probably get exposed to much worse air a month on average than the last few days.
tb