COVID-19’s preferred habitat is the respiratory tract, where it is most life-threatening in the lungs.  Infected lungs can become so congested that breathing becomes impossible without the help of a ventilator, and even using a ventilator hasn’t been enough in some cases to prevent death. So now is a good time to give your lungs some special care and consideration.  If you already have lung problems, such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, you’re more apt to get serious complications like pneumonia from COVID-19.  And whether or not you have existing lung problems, air pollution exposure increases your risk.  According to Dr. Meredith McCormack, a spokeswoman for the American Lung Association and associate professor of pulmonary and critical care at Johns Hopkins University, recently quoted in the New York Times , “Increased pollution increases susceptibility to infection. . . . All things being equal, a person exposed to a…

It was an apocalyptic experience to wake up on the morning of September 9th in San Francisco, California, to a darkened sky with an eerie orange glow. And it became stranger still when by mid-afternoon the sky hadn’t changed, as if the day had never begun.  This was a San Franciscan’s eye view of the effects of the worst fire season the West Coast has experienced ever. The air was darkened for two days by a blanket of smoke that stretched all along the coast and more than 1,000 miles west over the Pacific Ocean as wildfires raged from Washington down to Southern California.  Even those who haven’t been in the direct path of the fires leading to loss of property and life have experienced some of the worst air pollution in the world, comparable, according to a study done in Berkeley, to smoking 25 cigarettes a day.  And it didn’t help to know that the consequent lung irritation and inflammation made us more prone to lung infections, like COVID-19. What c…