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Find the latest information on the Coronavirus outbreak in Utah, including public health measures, contact information, news updates, and more.

Heat, Higher Ozone Levels Difficult For COVID-19 Patients

With hot temperatures comes high ozone levels, which tend to present breathing problems, according to doctors from Intermountain Healthcare. Coming out of a pandemic, this is especially concerning for those who have or who are currently battling COVID-19.Doctors at Intermountain shared warnings on Monday about the heat. Dr. Dentitza Blagev, a pulmonologist at Intermountain Medical Center, said COVID-19 patients’ lungs sometimes don’t fully recover, making those individuals “more susceptible to having kind of either breathing problems or coughing from the heat and really the ozone.”

 

Doctors are suggesting people stay inside during the heat of the day and to be aware of symptoms such as tight chest, cough or difficulty breathing. 

 

Bryce Bird, the air quality director for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, said the peak period of heat is between noon and 7 p.m. and “that’s the time when we expect to see those values high enough to impact people’s health.”

Tyler Hewitt is the web/social media assistant at UPR. He writes stories every day, updates the website and manages the station's Twitter and Facebook pages. Tyler is a senior at Utah State University and is studying public relations, marketing, and psychology. He loves to write, listen to music, play video games, play tennis and hang out with his fiancé and cat, Juno. He is a great plant dad and recently started collecting vinyl records!