In my ususal daily morning news read, I came across this item in the Washington Post and as it concerns portions of England and other European cities, I'm sending it along for verification. These days with the news in general being so 'shady', getting back up from citizens actually on the scene is a wise course.
washingtonpost.com/world/eu...
"...Air quality has been a problem in London since at least the Middle Ages. Rapid industrialization and urban growth lent a chronically smoky backdrop to literature throughout the Victorian period. In December 1952, coal-belching homes and factories enveloped London in smog so thick that air, rail and road traffic was halted for five days as cows dropped dead in their fields and people suffocated on the streets.
...In particularly traffic-swollen areas of central London, it took just the first eight days of 2016 to breach the European Union’s NO2 limits for the entire year.
Samantha Walker, policy director for Asthma UK, said that such high concentrations of pollutants can bring on an attack in minutes and that prolonged exposure among children can cause health impacts that last a lifetime...."