Californians are buckling under forest fires, COVID-19

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Californians are buckling under forest fires, COVID-19
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In recent days, California’s COVID-19 epidemic has collided head-on with the state’s long-standing climate crisis, which has sparked an aggressive start to the annual wildfire season

The Pine Gulch Fire continues to burn as flames shoot into the sky from a steep ridge, Aug. 24, 2020, near De Beque, Colo.It had already been a difficult enough year for Christine Pascoe. She recovered from COVID-19 this spring just in time for local public-health officials to shutter her small electrolysis business as part of an effort to slow the spread of the virus.

The wildfires have slowed the state’s efforts to combat the pandemic at a time when California was looking to start reopening businesses and schools. The state reported that it was testing half as many people a day as it did before the fires, which have shut down almost a dozen COVID-19 testing sites.

The twin perils of a pandemic and wildfires have been particularly hard on small retail businesses, many of whom had received approval to move their operations outdoors, only to be forced to close down because of poor air quality from the fires. “Now we’re telling many folks who haven’t left their homes for months, who are worried about exposure to COVID, that it’s safer to leave than to stay,” Dr. Ghaly said.

Firefighters are taking precautions to protect against COVID-19, including doubling the number of trailers used for resting between shifts, adding handwashing stations and enforcing physical distancing during meals. “We are making attempts to fight two different fights basically,” said Daniel Potter, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, the state fire agency. “The pandemic and the firefight itself.”

California health workers are also scrambling to prevent a wave of new infections inside crowded evacuation centres. Shelters have proved to be a breeding ground for illness during past wildfires, including a norovirus outbreak that tore through centres housing evacuees from a deadly fire two years ago in Paradise, Calif.

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