With Los Angeles – and the entire state of California – under stay-at-home orders to stem the deadly outbreak of coronavirus, something dramatic has happened to the air in LA. Beginning early last month, EPA air quality data shows that the city of Angels experienced its longest stretch of “good” air quality since at least 1995.  Doctor Yifang Zhu, a professor of environmental health sciences at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health and Institute of Environment and Sustainability, said that she and her colleagues identified a similar trend.

Zhu’s team found a 40 percent drop in levels of PM 2.5, a class of microscopic air pollutants that have been linked to serious cardiovascular and respiratory problems, especially in children and the elderly.