Greek Health Ministry issued a statement on Sunday, with recommendations to vulnerable groups due to increased air pollution (smog). After another weekend with freezing nights and fire places at full work, air pollution apparently reached dangerous levels especially in Thessaloniki.
“People with respiratory or cardiac problems and children should limit any strenuous physical activity , especially if it is outdoors .
People with asthma may require to inhale more frequent their medication, while for those over 65 years are asked to limit their physical activity, ” so the statement.
On TV news I heard this evening that the level of air pollution reached alarming levels in Thessaloniki, Northern Greece, however not high and suffocating enough that the Greek state keeps its promise and delivers electricity free of charge to low-income households.
First people need to suffocate at 150 microgram/m3 of dangerous particle and then start to heat with electricity.
While the Greek health ministry recommends also that people avoid using their fire places and wood stoves, millions of Greeks recommend the decrease of heating oil, natural gas and electricity prices.
BTW: a friend of mine, a pulmonologist at a public hospital was telling me that the cost of curing the deseases caused by the smog will be much higher than the state revenues from the high taxation on heating oil and natural gas and the several fees that make electricity unaffordable.
PS My new film project will have the title “I die every evening”. I will film streets hulled in yellow-grey smog. Background music will be the sound of my heavy breath while I walk at speed 7km/hour next to the sea. I feel the smog whether in winter or in summer long before the ministry makes a statement or it urges people to die in the cold.
