In Brazil’s Acre, smoke from fires threatens health, could worsen COVID-19

In Brazil’s Acre, smoke from fires threatens health, could worsen COVID-19

A historic drought in the Amazon this year, along with high levels of deforestation, have experts worried that this will be a particularly bad year for fires, including forest fires. “Wildfire smoke is not all that different than cigarette smoke — they’re both biomass burning products,” Michael Kleinman, [adjunct] professor of environmental toxicology and co-director of the Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine, told Verywell Health. “And we know how bad cigarette smoke is.”