People in North upset about smog's impact on their health

[Lite Beer]

People in North upset about smog's impact on their health
AYUTHAI NONNITIRAT,
STANLEY BENNETT
THE SUNDAY NATION

CHIANG MAI: -- HAZE IN the northern province of Chiang Mai was still visible yesterday, although the tiny particle dust count was down and closer to Thai safety levels.

But many residents keen to exercise outdoors and foreign visitors still complained about the impact of the smog on their health.

The level of particulate matter 10 microns in diameter or smaller (PM10) was 120 micrograms per cubic metre at a Doi Saket station, while Tambon Chang Pheuk reported 112 and Tambon Sri Phum reported 117.

Fewer people were exercising at the 700th Anniversary Chiangmai Sports Complex in the morning, Jamroon Khonnil, 73, a regular visitor to the stadium, said. "I also cannot breathe till my lungs are full and I get tired easily because of the smog," he said, adding that he wears a facemask for self-protection.

Thai national runner Natthaya Thanaronnawat, who has trained in the province for two weeks now, said the smog affected her training too. She has had throat, eye and respiratory track irritation and has had to adjust her schedule to run early in the morning when the weather is more humid. Many foreign visitors complained about the impact of the smog. American tourist Audrey Metzger said it was severe in the morning and at night, so she wore a facemask all the time when going outside as it was unhealthy.

Young women basketball players from Macau who attended the 7th Asian School Basketball Championships in Chiang Mai - Queenie Lam, Jessica Tong and Cecilia Ian - said the smog caused the weather to be hotter and made people get sick more easily. A youth basketball player from Malaysia, Liow En Xion, said he got eye irritation from the smog and urged officials to properly solve this issue.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/People-in-North-upset-about-smogs-impact-on-their--30256030.html

-- The Nation 2015-03-15

[NeilSA1]

Often see people wearing face masks. Do they genuinely assist with smog particles?

[khwaibah]

They sure are stylish.

[NongKhaiKid]

However a couple of days ago there was an assurance that it wasn't affecting tourism as high season has finished, is that all that ever matters ?

[Ozziepat]

The cheap and popular facial masks that fit around the ears are essentially worthless. N95 masks by 3M are effective but uncomfortable to wear and maybe too expensive for most Thais (30 THB each at the 3M shop). And of course neither protects the eyes.

[jaywalker]

Ummmm........quit burning stuff up there maybe...might help.

Has to be agricultural burning. Just a wild guess as to why CM has this problem & not BKK....not to say BKK is smog free.

I just don't read about it in the news all that much.

[attrayant]

People think that trash + fire = nothing and their disposal problems are solved. A house next to my school occasionally burns trash during the morning ceremony and everybody gets a lung full.

[maidee]

if the mask is not a n95 certified, pretty much useless

[elgordo38]

However a couple of days ago there was an assurance that it wasn't affecting tourism as high season has finished, is that all that ever matters ?

Yes sadly it is all that matters to the bean counters.

[vivid]

Often see people wearing face masks. Do they genuinely assist with smog particles?

Yes they do. FFP-1 is 80% @ 0.3 microns (it'd be 90+ at say 0.5 microns etc). China's KN90 standard is 90% at 0.3 microns. US NIOSH N95 is 95%.

FFP-1 is more than sufficient. It is better too as it has a lower resistance than N95. It's pretty difficult to breathe through a N95 for > 1hr even for a health individual, much less pregnant women/elderly with their much reduced lung capacities.

Extreme joggers would probably be happy with a N99 though, it helps some of them train up. Something like running in the mountains for the Kenya marathoners.

Taking good care to achieve a good fit is a must because any small leak/bypass at the sides between the mask and the face would drastically reduce the efficiency of the mask.

Of course, I'm not asking folks to do a proper fit test like what they do in a lab.

Edited March 15, 2015 by vivid

[vivid]

The cheap and popular facial masks that fit around the ears are essentially worthless. N95 masks by 3M are effective but uncomfortable to wear and maybe too expensive for most Thais (30 THB each at the 3M shop). And of course neither protects the eyes.

It's SGD3.90 (nearly 100 THB) over here. I guess affordability is about the same then, about 3.5X difference in salary.

[vivid]

PM2.5 is already published on aqmthai.com (PCD's webby). But 100% of the time I see over here in news both from Thailand and even in my country, it's just PM10.

Bring up the PM2.5 numbers. It shoots up from Unhealthy zone (based on PM10), skips past the Very Unhealthy zone and goes right into the Hazardous zone. Schools will be shut in Malaysia and a state of emergency in affected towns declared.

Edited March 15, 2015 by vivid

[Ricardo]

Flying DMK-CNX yesterday-afternoon, there were many plumes of smoke coming from the forests and mountains, and driving into town (with the windows closed) this morning the visibility is much worse than it was down in Bangkok.

Just one involuntary-observers' experience.

[FolkGuitar]

It's very important to keep your windows closed because air can't get into your house that way. At least, that's what I'm led to believe from the Embassy warnings. Why else would they tell us to stay indoors? Pollution particulate matter that can penetrate a surgical mask, probably can't get through any of the cracks. Probably, you shouldn't breath.

I listened to two guys standing outside a guest house restaurant this afternoon smoking their cigarettes and discussing how bad the air quality is in Chiang Mai.

This evening, when a fellow next to me started to complain about the air, and I told him that today's pollution index was lower than it was on the same day last year, he became quite angry. God forbid I should take away his rational for complaining! I guess complaining might good for one's emotional well-being. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure listening TO complaining is not.

Damn, I sure wish someone would do something about this heat!

[Misterwhisper]

Often see people wearing face masks. Do they genuinely assist with smog particles?

Short answer: No, they don't.

These are surgical masks designed to prevent medical personnel or surgeons from breathing OUT potentially harmful germs and into open wounds, for example. They do NOT prevent tiny air pollutants from being breathed IN. They may filter out some larger dust and soot particles, but are not very effective at that either.

I guess people at large are not aware of that and only wear those masks because it "makes them feel safer". A bit like wearing a magical amulet...

Edited March 15, 2015 by Misterwhisper

[vivid]

It's very important to keep your windows closed because air can't get into your house that way. At least, that's what I'm led to believe from the Embassy warnings. Why else would they tell us to stay indoors? Pollution particulate matter that can penetrate a surgical mask, probably can't get through any of the cracks. Probably, you shouldn't breath.

They did measured levels in residential homes and cars with windows and doors closed. It's slightly lower. There is usually some "decay" over time. Another reason is that when you are indoors especially resting and lying down, your respiration rate goes down a lot. Hence the exposure factor is dramatically reduced.

Are here any superior-grade office buildings or shopping malls in Chiang Mai? 5-star international hotels? These buildings are supposed to be using F7-F9 grade medium efficiency filters in the AHUs, they do reduce the particulate matter levels by quite a lot.

This is my office building in SG, pretty modern one. I was getting some 30-35 ug/m3 for the external environment.

Edited March 15, 2015 by vivid

[FolkGuitar]

It's very important to keep your windows closed because air can't get into your house that way. At least, that's what I'm led to believe from the Embassy warnings. Why else would they tell us to stay indoors? Pollution particulate matter that can penetrate a surgical mask, probably can't get through any of the cracks. Probably, you shouldn't breath.

They did measured levels in residential homes and cars with windows and doors closed. It's slightly lower. There is usually some "decay" over time. Another reason is that when you are indoors especially resting and lying down, your respiration rate goes down a lot. Hence the exposure factor is dramatically reduced.

N95 masks work. N95-grade filters on air conditioners work. 'Slightly lower' doesn't mean very much when the air is thick enough to chew...

Fortunately, it's only that way for a couple of weeks, and the N95 masks work well. They are cheap enough, and not so uncomfortable as to keep me indoors until the rains come. The air pollution has little impact on my daily life. It does, however, give lots of people something to complain about, which seems to make them happy.

[jonwilly]

"The cheap and popular facial masks that fit around the ears are essentially worthless. N95 masks by 3M are effective but uncomfortable to wear and maybe too expensive for most Thais"

Strange Dr Morgan wears a normal medical face mask so as a Medical qualified person she most know something on the subject.

Little Old me, I wear a normal white face mask given to me by Dr Tavachai some time ago.

Mind you I cheat I have taped commercially available Filter Paper over the front.

john

Still not seen one person wearing the expensive type masks this year, although in years gone by I did occasionally see one or two.

[cmsally]

Off the b...... scale this morning!!! No data on the web

[KarenBravo]

They know about the problem.

They know what causes it.

They know where it's caused.

They know who's causing it.

They don't do anything. Why?

[cmsally]

Looks like we have a PM10 over 300

and PM2.5 of around 300

http://aqmthai.com/public_report.php?lang=en

[vivid]

"The cheap and popular facial masks that fit around the ears are essentially worthless. N95 masks by 3M are effective but uncomfortable to wear and maybe too expensive for most Thais"

Strange Dr Morgan wears a normal medical face mask so as a Medical qualified person she most know something on the subject.

Little Old me, I wear a normal white face mask given to me by Dr Tavachai some time ago.

Mind you I cheat I have taped commercially available Filter Paper over the front.

john

Still not seen one person wearing the expensive type masks this year, although in years gone by I did occasionally see one or two.

For one, you'd need to cut down on the horrendous bypass at the sides.

Surgical masks do help a bit from 5.0 and above.

However, they don't do anything to the significantly more dangerous PM2.5.

Left figure is for 0.5 microns. Right is 2.5 microns. You can calculate the % cut from this.

Edited March 16, 2015 by vivid

[T_Dog]

They know about the problem.

They know what causes it.

They know where it's caused.

They know who's causing it.

They don't do anything. Why?

Thai friend told me that the problem is due to the organization of the government. Police report to a commander in Bangkok, and not to the local governor. So the police are left without orders and the local governor can not influence them much. The forestry department apparently can not make arrests either as two weeks ago I saw fires within sight of a manned forestry checkpoint. So far in Thailand, no one in any kind of authority cares about this problem that is now affecting around 5 million people. It has been like this for the decade I have been here and there is nothing happening to change it. No one in authority cares about the problem.

[vivid]

N95 masks work. N95-grade filters on air conditioners work. 'Slightly lower' doesn't mean very much when the air is thick enough to chew...

Fortunately, it's only that way for a couple of weeks, and the N95 masks work well. They are cheap enough, and not so uncomfortable as to keep me indoors until the rains come. The air pollution has little impact on my daily life. It does, however, give lots of people something to complain about, which seems to make them happy.

Bro, nice to hear that you have taken active steps in reducing PM exposure.

Not sure how useful is the following measurement, but this was done by one of my forum pals during the haze in Singapore during 2013.

Seems like there is a "decay" of 50% in PM when you go indoors, and another 50% reduction with 3M aircon filtrate filtration. Of course HEPA air purifiers offer even better performance.

57t and 58t (Chiang Rai and Mae Hong Son) are being smoked since last evening.

Regarding these Health Advisories, one thing to consider is the normal general population. Their technical knowledge wrt haze hazards, what % are in the sensitive group (eg, headaches, rhinitis) and what % are in the extremely susceptible group (heart issues esp, newborns/infants/toddlers, pregnant women, chronic asthmatics, bronchitis/pneumonia etc).

In the rural parts of Thailand, I'd reckon that THB 30 for a 3M N95 is not a small figure. 2 weeks = 14 days. 14 x 30 x family of 3 = THB 1260.

(folks are lucky that the mask are still being sold, it went out-of-stock in Singapore during 2013 and people were selling N95 at THB 230 each in the black market)

3M Filtrete filters probably needs to be changed once every 2-3 days at such levels, else the performance would not hold up (electrostatically charged fibres, once they clog the performance drops....unlike HEPA)

Besides, most would just wear a surgical mask even if the PSI/AQI/API were to hit 500. Happened before in Malaysia and Indonesia where the index hit the ceiling and stayed there, no joke.

In 2014 March, 60k of the population in Riau, Indonesia needed hospitalisation care due to extreme levels of smoke that they suffered for close to 2 months.

The general population in Thailand is just fed with PM10 24-hr moving average data from the news, that's it.

Edited March 16, 2015 by vivid

[mesquite]

The only solution is to leave.

[FolkGuitar]

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N95 masks work. N95-grade filters on air conditioners work. 'Slightly lower' doesn't mean very much when the air is thick enough to chew...

Fortunately, it's only that way for a couple of weeks, and the N95 masks work well. They are cheap enough, and not so uncomfortable as to keep me indoors until the rains come. The air pollution has little impact on my daily life. It does, however, give lots of people something to complain about, which seems to make them happy.

Bro, nice to hear that you have taken active steps in reducing PM exposure.

Not sure how useful is the following measurement, but this was done by one of my forum pals during the haze in Singapore during 2013.

Seems like there is a "decay" of 50% in PM when you go indoors, and another 50% reduction with 3M aircon filtrate filtration. Of course HEPA air purifiers offer even better performance.

57t and 58t (Chiang Rai and Mae Hong Son) are being smoked since last evening.

Regarding these Health Advisories, one thing to consider is the normal general population. Their technical knowledge wrt haze hazards, what % are in the sensitive group (eg, headaches, rhinitis) and what % are in the extremely susceptible group (heart issues esp, newborns/infants/toddlers, pregnant women, chronic asthmatics, bronchitis/pneumonia etc).

In the rural parts of Thailand, I'd reckon that THB 30 for a 3M N95 is not a small figure. 2 weeks = 14 days. 14 x 30 x family of 3 = THB 1260.

(folks are lucky that the mask are still being sold, it went out-of-stock in Singapore during 2013 and people were selling N95 at THB 230 each in the black market)

3M Filtrete filters probably needs to be changed once every 2-3 days at such levels, else the performance would not hold up (electrostatically charged fibres, once they clog the performance drops....unlike HEPA)

Besides, most would just wear a surgical mask even if the PSI/AQI/API were to hit 500. Happened before in Malaysia and Indonesia where the index hit the ceiling and stayed there, no joke.

In 2014 March, 60k of the population in Riau, Indonesia needed hospitalisation care due to extreme levels of smoke that they suffered for close to 2 months.

The general population in Thailand is just fed with PM10 24-hr moving average data from the news, that's it.

No question about it, the situation isn't good. It does need to be addressed by the government, but that won't happen until pigs fly. TIT.

And no question either that effective N95 masks are expensive for the average rural Thai family. THEY are the ones who need to push the government into action. City Hall isn't going to listen to a group of foreigners with the same ears that they will hear from their electoral constituents.

The only effect foreigners make is noise.

The chart is interesting, and I can certainly understand how a good air filter will help clear up a lot of the problems indoors. But I don't understand how there can be a 50% drop indoors without one. Air still enters the house (thank God...) And the particulate matter is measured in microns, not inches or centimeters (than God...) "Micron" is a pretty small measurement. The adult human hair 'averages' about 40 microns thick. So we're talking about particulate matter far smaller than a human hair. What is it about going indoors that would drop the percentage 50%? Air is still entering. It's still circulating. I can see a small drop as the particulates cling to surfaces, perhaps a 5%-8% drop. But no where near 50%.

The only solution is to leave.

A lot of people do. I, for one, am happy to see them go. It's less people standing around bitching and moaning about something over which they have no control. That makes as much sense as complaining about the weather. Other folks buy an air filter for their homes and wear N95 masks for the few weeks that the air quality is low, and never say a word.

I just bought a box of 10 masks from Amazon. Ordered and arrived 5 days later. 10 masks are more than enough for my wife and me to last the next two-three weeks of burning season. Looking at last year's stats, the air quality cleared up by the first week in April. By April 5th it was down to 63...

Edited March 16, 2015 by FolkGuitar

[KarenBravo]

^

A pretty typical post from an apologist.

The analogy between complaining about the weather and complaining about a man made-phenomenon is so obviously false.

[khwaibah]

^

A pretty typical post from an apologist.

The analogy between complaining about the weather and complaining about a man made-phenomenon is so obviously false.

Your going to have to nuke the other SE asian countries to change this. This morning.

[vivid]

The chart is interesting, and I can certainly understand how a good air filter will help clear up a lot of the problems indoors. But I don't understand how there can be a 50% drop indoors without one. Air still enters the house (thank God...) And the particulate matter is measured in microns, not inches or centimeters (than God...) "Micron" is a pretty small measurement. The adult human hair 'averages' about 40 microns thick. So we're talking about particulate matter far smaller than a human hair. What is it about going indoors that would drop the percentage 50%? Air is still entering. It's still circulating. I can see a small drop as the particulates cling to surfaces, perhaps a 5%-8% drop. But no where near 50%.

The only solution is to leave.

Other folks buy an air filter for their homes and wear N95 masks for the few weeks that the air quality is low, and never say a word.

I just bought a box of 10 masks from Amazon. Ordered and arrived 5 days later. 10 masks are more than enough for my wife and me to last the next two-three weeks of burning season. Looking at last year's stats, the air quality cleared up by the first week in April. By April 5th it was down to 63...

I just purchased a PM2.5 laser particle counter recently (might not be terribly accurate but more than sensitive enough to show % decrease), just waiting for the haze period over here in SG to personally test. But yeah, 50% is too much. I forgot to mention that another party has done measurements in the car vs roadside, there's a decrease but that's more like 20% lower. But 50% for 3M Filtrete aircon filter, i believe that's legit.

Talking about Amazon, i stocked up several boxes of 3M 9210 (20 in a box) when it was usd4.05, and Amazon ships free to SG. Min of usd125 per order, eligible goods.

[Awk]

The chart is interesting, and I can certainly understand how a good air filter will help clear up a lot of the problems indoors. But I don't understand how there can be a 50% drop indoors without one. Air still enters the house (thank God...) And the particulate matter is measured in microns, not inches or centimeters (than God...) "Micron" is a pretty small measurement. The adult human hair 'averages' about 40 microns thick. So we're talking about particulate matter far smaller than a human hair. What is it about going indoors that would drop the percentage 50%? Air is still entering. It's still circulating. I can see a small drop as the particulates cling to surfaces, perhaps a 5%-8% drop. But no where near 50%.

Afaik, there is no significant drop in indoors as far as pm2.5 is concerned. I measured this myself last year, and I also recently read some research papers confirming the same. Possibly there is some error in the measurement procedure for the plot, as I do not understand the results either. E.g., perhaps the living room is close to the bedroom, and after a while, cleaner bedroom air seeps out into the livingroom. I know that outside my closed bedroom, where I run the air purifier at max currently, the air will be somewhat better than in the rest of the house, presumably due to the same reason.

For the larger pm10 particles, I measured a notable drop by going inside however (around 30% reduction was what I measured last year).

However, the simple fact of turning on the AC, even without any extra filters, significantly reduces the pm2.5 count by up to 50%. 3M improves the reduction, but in my measurements, by a somewhat surprisingly small margin.

The main thing to do now is to switch on the AC if you have one in my opinion.

Why does just a regular old AC help? I am not sure, but I guess any filter will catch a fair amount of the pm2.5 particles also, e.g. ref. the counts posted by vivid for the surgical mask that is not intended to catch pm2.5, but which still reduces the particle count by half (or more if I remember correctly). If so, circulating the air again and again even through a regular AC filter should remove some particles each time air passes through. As long as the even slightly cleaner air coming out of the AC flows out a rate considerably larger than the more dirty air from outside flows in at, it makes sense that air inside will be at least slightly better. I was much surprised by how much better it was however.

More recently I also measured inside our newish car, which has much better isolation (I suspect) than the house we live in. With the AC off, there was no significant difference in the pm2.5 count versus outside, while pm10 was considerably lower. After running the AC at the regular speed (lowest or second to lowest, don't remember) for 15 minutes, while driving even, pm2.5 count inside was about 1/3 of the pm2.5 count outside, so as suspected considerably better than in our leaky house. Should obviously be repeated a handful of times to be sure, but I only did this particular measurement one.

Note that most car AC's have a setting for whether to just circulate the air already inside the car, or whether to let in air from outside and cool/filter that. Obviously, the former is what one wants at this time.