Everyone could tell from the moment we woke up today; today is a pea-soup day here in Beijing. People should know that the current pollution is above 500 (the level of fine particulates under 2.5 micron, considered the most unhealthy pollutant); anything over 300 is considered hazardous for everyone outside, not just those with illnesses. This level has been in the “red” zone for at least 24 hours already.

Certainly this is a level high enough where all outdoor school activities should be postponed. We’ve discussed school pollution plans before, and now is a good time to review that. It’s also a good time to let people know yet again about the extremely useful Beijing AQI website, which feeds hourly real-time PM2.5 data from the US Embassy monitor near east third ring and liangmaqiao lu. You can also follow an experimental forecasting website here; it’s not perfect but it does show that things may get better after midnight. Let’s see how accurate it is…

All healthy people, if you need to be outside, should seriously consider wearing an N95 or similar filtration mask.