Puerto Rico can’t catch a break. Still attempting to recover from Hurricane Maria, with power problems exacerbated by the recent earthquakes, COVID-19, and a failing healthcare system (thanks to U.S. government Medicaid funding inequities), now the island has been hit by a Saharan dust cloud.
Reports are being posted to social media from the island:
When I saw the following headline from The Guardian, I wanted to drop them a note of correction—the dust has already arrived in the U.S. since Puerto Rico is part of the United States, though not part of the mainland.
‘Godzilla dust cloud' from Sahara blankets Caribbean on its way to US:
Extremely hazy conditions and limited visibility were reported from Antigua down to Trinidad & Tobago, with the event expected to last until late Tuesday. Some people posted pictures of themselves on social media wearing double masks to ward off the coronavirus and the dust, while others joked that the Caribbean looked like it had received a yellow filter movie treatment.
José Alamo, a meteorologist with the US National Weather Service in San Juan, Puerto Rico, said the worst days for the US territory would be Monday and Tuesday as the plume heads toward the US south-east coast. The main international airport in San Juan was reporting only 8km (5 miles) of visibility. The mass of extremely dry and dusty air is known as the Saharan Air Layer and forms over the Sahara desert. It moves across the North Atlantic every three to five days during the northern hemisphere’s late spring to early autumn, peaking in late June to mid-August, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The layer can be 3km thick, the agency said.
What is extremely worrisome is the question of how this dust cloud will affect asthma sufferers on the island.
Public health officials and researchers have been studying high asthma rates for Puerto Ricans for many years. As Nicholas Weiler reports in “Respiratory Infections May Drive Puerto Rico’s High Asthma Burden”:
Puerto Ricans have the highest asthma rates in the world, with the disease affecting roughly 14.2 percent of Puerto Ricans at some point in their lives. In contrast, 9.6 percent of African-Americans, 8.2 percent of non-Hispanic whites, and 4.8 percent of Mexican-Americans report that they have experienced asthma at some point in their lives according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Puerto Ricans are also four times more likely to die of the disease than non-Hispanic whites.
The Saharan dust cloud will move on in a few days, but I’m sitting here wondering what permanent damage to Puerto Rican lungs, lives, and health it will leave in its wake.
Given the lack of support for Puerto Rico from Trump and his minions, I seriously doubt that any help is on its way from Washington.