Africa-Press – Seychelles. Our flight approaches Johannesburg. The clear sunny winter sky becomes hazy, and then as we circle ready to land at OR Tambo I see the city through its dusky veil of smoke. Winter is always worse than summer. Our city has a kind of industrial metallic smell. When I’ve been away to the bush or the sea, my nose wrinkles as I drive closer. Still, my heart is happy. This is home.
I’ve been traveling for eight weeks, working virtually, part-time along the way. Discussions with colleagues and keeping in touch with family and friends has meant making dozens of WhatsApp video calls. It has been really noticeable how often I’ve been told of people being quite ill, mostly colds and flu, sometimes bronchitis or pneumonia – even taking a whole week off work to recover – not just down for a day or two. I ventured to suggest that perhaps the air quality might exacerbate the winter propensity for illness?
I grew up in a coal mining town. We used coal for cooking and heating water. As children when we blew our noses, our hankies were always blackened with the coal dust wed inhaled.
Thirty years ago, I drove weekly from Johannesburg though Ogies to a rural community nearby. I would notice women and children scratching through the waste coal slag for what we used to call “tailings” – the small bits of coal. Using these for cooking would save on paraffin costs. But in the small homes of townships and informal settlements, the inhalation of fumes is concentrated.
My friend Gonda, completing her Master’s degree in community health, researched the occurrence of respiratory issues in children living in these highveld mining towns. The long-term consequences of emissions are serious: pulmonary disease, lung cancer, pneumonia, eye cataracts, strokes, ischaemic heart disease.
I wondered what the current data is on Johannesburg’s air quality – is it improving? Would living at the sea would be a healthier life choice for longevity. I looked up the Air Quality Index, AQI. The results surprised me. In descending order, from worst to best the South African figures are:
eSikhaleni, popularly known as eSikhawini comes in as the place to live with the cleanest air.
Most of us live where we work. We don’t have the choice to move to KwaZulu-Natal, the Lowveld or Camps Bay. So what more could be done about improving air quality? Clean energy is obvious but we could do more about vehicle emissions.
My eight weeks of travel included a week in central London. In terms of traffic noises it was very different from previous visits years ago. It was remarkably quieter. As I waited to cross a street, the passing buses, taxis and cars purred. They were almost all electric vehicles.
I learnt that the mayor of London Sadiq Khan, concerned about the respiratory health of London’s inner-city children had pushed against petrol- and diesel-powered engines. Their carbon mono oxide diffuses across lung tissues into the blood stream making it difficult for the body’s cells to bind with oxygen. Lead in emissions is dangerous, with neurological and gastrointestinal effects. Non-electrical vehicles now pay a penalty to drive in London’s inner city. The vehicle switch has been phenomenal.
It is not just London. As I travelled through Germany the increasing presence of electric cars, the numbers of parking bays with charging sockets in parking garages is noteworthy. For some people the switch may have been due to what they consider to be a moral choice to be responsible in terms of environmental considerations. For other’s it is an economic choice – several countries have introduced tax incentives which are significant enough to be seductive.
In the meantime, I wonder how long it will take for our country to have a stronger public policy and tax incentives to support changes in industrial emissions and electric vehicle production and adoption. In the longer term, such change would improve the Air Quality Index of South Africa’s industrial and residential areas and lower the incidence of the disease mentioned earlier. As a nation we’d save on medical treatments. What’s stopping us from accelerating this change?
All things considered, I’ve decided I’m going back to wearing a mask in social or travel situations when I’m in close proximity to others. I had already noticed that some people who are sneezing have taken to wearing masks as an act of social responsibility.
This week Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo won the Olympic gold medal for the mens’ 200m. USA hot favourite Noah Lyle congratulated Tebogo, touching him physically. Lyle later left the track in a wheelchair, and it was revealed he had tested positive for Covid two days earlier. Until then Lyle was being feted as a hero. Now social media is alive with comment – one X posting criticised Lyle as, “irresponsible and self-serving, putting others at risk.”
One medical practitioner told me that mask wearing stops the spread of infection – but only certain masks.
The USA’s Centre for Disease Control (CDC) advises that if masks are to protect wearers from inhaling germs – this type of protection comes if you wear better fitting masks – for example the N95 or KN95 respirators.
Living by design? I dislike wearing masks, but that’s preferable to becoming ill after inhaling germs that I could have avoided! And if indeed it is me that’s unwell, there’s a responsibility to protect others.
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