"Nearly 60 people will die prematurely from the excess air pollution caused by Volkswagen cheating emissions tests in the US, according to a new study."
Really it is just person years of life lost. Some people who may have lived until 90 died at 89 and 11 months. Some people got a case of bronchitis that lasted a week not 6 days and years later died a bit earlier. And so on. But OTOH many people who might well have died early from pollution died of something else and were never autopsied to check on pollution damage so are not counted...except by statisticians.
The statement "As well as the early deaths, the researchers estimated that the extra pollution from VW’s cars caused around 31 cases of chronic bronchitis, 34 hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiac issues, and 120,000 days when people had to restrict their physical activity as a result." is just the same old statistical nonsense
The same sort of stuff is broadcast when it is suggested that speed limits are raised, beer is sold in grocery stores and wait for it...when Trudeau Jr promises to legalize Pot. I have wondered whether there is an app for generating these things.
As for the reference to the London Smog, mrs tpl experienced the last big one when she was a little kid. Temperature inversion and coal smoke full of sulphur and all the other products of incomplete combustion. I am sure that somewhere there are articles comparing that to a bad day in LA before emission controls. I do remember being on the sunken part of the Paris Peripherique in rush hour on a warm day a year or two before the EU reduced sulphur in diesel and that must have been like LA or even worse.
