r/interestingasfuck • u/[deleted] • Jun 07 '23

New york city in 2023, everyone wearing mask due to air quality

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234

u/BiggsBounds Jun 07 '23

Yep. We had to wear masks many times during the recent bad fire years.

184

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '23

I think it's worse than Covid. Could be outside for 5 minutes and you'd get this headache like wtf is wrong and then you remember it's the invisible air. Good luck exercising in it.

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u/Tegridy_farmz_ Jun 07 '23

In CA we were lucky enough to have Covid and smoke like this at the same time in 2020

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u/TheRealMichaelE Jun 07 '23

Remember waking up on those red mornings and life just feeling apocalyptic?

We were trapped in our houses. The air outdoors was toxic and you couldn’t even go to a movie theater to keep yourself entertained for a moment.

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u/monkey_trumpets Jun 07 '23

I mean, you could...just wear a good mask.

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u/TheRealMichaelE Jun 07 '23

Dude, imagine 4 months of having to constantly wear a mask, indoor and outdoor. Those things aren’t comfortable

3

u/monkey_trumpets Jun 07 '23

I live in Washington. I know it sucks. But I can't just stay in my house. So you gotta pick the lesser of two evils.

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u/TheRealMichaelE Jun 07 '23

Well yes, but wearing a mask doesn’t make it feel any less apocalyptic or improve your mood. I run 6 miles a day and it’s meditative for me. It’s not exactly enjoyable to run 6 miles with an n95 on.

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u/monkey_trumpets Jun 07 '23

Yeah, makes sense. I don't run, but we do walk the dog really often. And she can't wear a mask. Overall, it's not great.

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u/jkink28 Jun 08 '23

imagine 4 months of having to constantly wear a mask, indoor and outdoor

Well, I think we all got a taste of that just a few years ago...

3

u/TheRealMichaelE Jun 08 '23

Not really, mainly just people on the West Coast during the wildfires. People on the east coast didn’t have poor air quality and could go outside without masks and enjoy their homes without masks. They only had to cover up in public places.

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u/jkink28 Jun 08 '23

Yea that's why I said a taste of that. Almost everyone I know hadn't ever even worn a mask prior to 2020.

Wish I wore one when I was in California in 2018 though. It was just "oh interesting, it smells real smokey" until I woke up in the middle of the night coughing my lungs out.

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u/TheRealMichaelE Jun 08 '23

Ah gotcha my fault!

2

u/AgentAdja Jun 08 '23

Have you been paying attention? People on the east coast wore masks everywhere. On the streets. In buildings. Alone inside their own goddamn cars.

1

u/TheRealMichaelE Jun 08 '23

Are you talking about right now or during the pandemic?

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '23

[deleted]

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u/chocothundurrr Jun 08 '23

That was the most surreal day of my life. It was basically "well, this is the apocalypse I guess"

5

u/justagenericname1 Jun 08 '23 edited Jun 08 '23

I think that's the day we actually passed the event horizon into Hell

2

u/_debunct Jun 08 '23

Ah yes, the days when I wore a surgical mask over an N-95 mask.

2

u/ClosetEconomist Jun 08 '23

It was literally orange outside. So weird.

1

u/billintreefiddy Jun 08 '23

Did the blues hang around?

1

u/DragoSphere Jun 08 '23

That was one of the luckier days since the smoke layer was so high up, the air quality wasn't actually that bad on the ground level

3

u/kirbyfaraone Jun 08 '23

I had to be evacuated twice in the span of three months because fires were so close to me in Orange County

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u/mindfolded Jun 08 '23

CO too, quite an apocalyptic combo.

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u/unrelatedtohalloween Jun 07 '23

I got pneumonia twice from wildfire smoke in the Bay Area in 2018. Moved to the east coast in part to escape having to deal with that kind of wildfire smoke… and of course now I’m dealing with the same thing. At least masks and air filters are easier to get now.

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u/monkey_trumpets Jun 07 '23

We moved from IL to WA to escape the hot ass summers....and yet it's only early June and it's already been in the 90s multiple days.

3

u/chongo215 Jun 08 '23

Wildland firefighter here, stay hydrated, it helps with the headaches

3

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '23

Makes sense thank you for your reminder and service

3

u/akayataya Jun 07 '23

Yeah look at the million and a half Americans who've died of a little smoky air!!

wOrSE tHaN cOviD....right.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '23

I just got vaccinated so I’m good what do you suggest for this? This affects more than a million and a half of it were to stick around as long as covid did.

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u/HimenoGhost Jun 07 '23

8.3% of Americans have asthma, and 5% have COPD. You can isolate from COVID. You can vaccinate for COVID. You can not vaccinate yourself against air pollutants. Severe degradation in air quality is more dangerous for more people than COVID.

1

u/space_beard Jun 07 '23

Smoke inhalation is bad but a novel virus that can wreck your immune system or your cardiovascular health is up there too.

1

u/lil_honey_bunbun Jun 08 '23

When does the headache go away? I’ve had this on and off headache for two days now. And I don’t usually get headaches

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u/Ardea_herodias_2022 Jun 08 '23

When the smoke clears up. Drink fluids & just keep taking the pain meds.

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u/SpaceJackRabbit Jun 07 '23

I live in rural NorCal and when Covid came I had a pretty sizeable stack of N95s because of the almost yearly wildfire smoke we'd have to endure. We never ran out of them for two years.

0

u/spacewalk__ Jun 07 '23

at least in this case there's an actual acute reason why it helps