Just By Breathing in Delhi, You Smoke 148 Cigarettes Weekly
Delhi Air Quality Index
The air quality in the Delhi-NCR region remained hazardous with the AQI (air quality index) touching 500 on Monday. Rains over the weekend didn’t seem to help as it only appeared to worsen the thick smog that had engulfed the national capital. The haze over the city, along with the plummeting AQI, has completely disrupted normal life with schools choosing to remain shut and low visibility causing delayed and diverted flights.
With the city literally struggling to breathe, several suggested that moving out of the city seems like a wise solution. Burning and itchy eyes, dry throat and breathing troubles seemed to be popular subjects of conversation across the city. “How to stay safe” as Delhi chokes appeared to be top searches on Google over the past few days. For non-smokers, it almost feels like being exposed to toxic cigarette smoke twenty-four hours a day! Yes, it’s that bad.
Those who just take a walk in neighbourhood is now prone to effects of smoking approx 148 Cigarettes Weekly.
The app, named “Shit, I Smoke” was developed by Marcelo Coelho and Amaury Martiny last year. Basically, the app, which is available on iOS and Android, monitors data from air quality stations strewn across various locations in order to analyse the quality of air in a particular place. It then deduces how many cigarettes you’ve been smoking, just by breathing toxic, polluted urban air.
The makers of the app-based it on a study by professors at California University who used a mathematical model in order to calculate how many cigarettes one is smoking simply by inhaling particulate matter present in polluted air. Given that Delhi is, without a doubt, the most polluted city in the world right now, we decided to give the app a try.
According to the app, as of 8:51 AM on Monday, anyone who spent a few minutes outdoors in Noida will have smoked 25.6 cigarettes daily.-
