Utah's smoky skies can make it easier to catch COVID-19, doctors say

The smoke that suddenly overwhelmed northern Utah on Friday morning can cause everything from asthma to heart attacks and strokes — and speed the spread of COVID-19 — according to doctors.

The pollution from West Coast wildfires increases the risk of viral infections “including COVID,” said Denitza Blagev, a pulmonary physician at Intermountain Healthcare. So having the smoke invade Utah “in the middle of the delta [variant] surge is really unfortunate.”

“There’s now good data that worsening air pollution increases the transmission of COVID,” agreed Robert Paine, chief of the division of pulmonary at University of Utah Health. “So it is one more reason to … stay out of the bad air.”

And the air has been quite bad in parts of Utah on Friday — some of the highest levels of PM 2.5 particulates ever recorded in the state, more than triple the federal standards. And that’s a danger to everyone.

Read more: https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/08/06/utahs-smoky-skies-can/