Immediate steps need to be taken to improve air quality, says top expert

By Shalini Bhardwaj
New Delhi [India], November 13 : As air quality dipped to the "severe category" in the Delhi-National Capital Region, health experts said the toxic air is suffocating and affecting even those who have no respiratory problem or chest disease.
"So it is true that the air for the last few days has been continuously deteriorating. Yesterday evening, we experienced probably the worst air quality in the recent past and it was so bad that although I have no respiratory problem, even I was actually feeling suffocated. And so while I was going home yesterday evening, it was really unfit for human consumption," Dr. Arvind Kumar, Chairman of Institute of Chest Surgery, Medanta Hospital told ANI.
"So if this is what is happening to an apparently normal person who has no chest disease, you can imagine the agony, the pain, the disability, the distress, which people with chest disease must be suffering," he added.
Dr Arvind further said, "Air pollution can cause serious complication to those who have recovered from COVID-19. We have a large number of post-COVID-19 recovered patients, people who are there and their lungs are highly vulnerable to serious complications if continuously exposed to this kind of toxic air."
He also stressed on taking immediate measures to tackle the situation. "So medically speaking, it is the need of the hour to take any and every measure immediately to improve the air quality. And as the honourable Supreme Court has said, one of the steps could be to go for a lockdown, which will cut down the vehicles, including cars on the road. Or reduce all the activity including construction and other activities, thereby bringing about an immediate improvement in the quality as we saw during lockdown period or Corona last year. So it is a medically required step."
"However, along with that, I would also like to stress that it's very sad that for the last six years, year after year, we are allowing this dangerous, avoidable situation to develop and once it develops, we go for such knee jerk reaction and this kind of temporary measures, but sadly, no permanent solution to the problem is found," he added.
Earlier today, the apex court said that air quality in Delhi is in the 'severe' category, and in another two to three days it will dip further.
According to the Central Pollution Control Board the overall AQI in Delhi was 427 in the evening According to the government agencies, an AQI between 0-50 is considered good, 51-100 is satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor and 401-500 are marked as severe/hazardous.