We can turn up our noses at pollen bomb risk
You might have heard a bit of warmongering over the past week. You might have heard whispers about an impending attack that could render more than a third of the population useless – and that if that wasn’t scary enough, all we have to defend ourselves is Kleenex, antihistamines and hermetically sealing ourselves off in our living rooms.
“Pollen bomb hits TODAY,” bellowed one national newspaper. “Met Office announce pollen bomb,” another said (they in fact did not). The regional press followed – “Birmingham braced for pollen bomb”, “Pollen bomb warning for Devon and Cornwall” – and quickly you could be forgiven for thinking we need to seek shelter and relocate the Blitz spirit. Or the extra-strong Claritin, at least.
Mercifully, this foe is not a new biological weapon developed in a Vladivostok laboratory, but in fact a consequence of the miserable June we’ve been having. In a normal, mostly dry summer, hay fever sufferers whose primary nemesis is grass pollen would have gradually reached peak torture around now. After three weeks of solid rain preventing its release this year, however, the pollen has had an age to build up before a dry spell – say, the intense heat much of the country is due in the coming days – allows it to all be emitted at once. Boom.
It’s a faintly terrifying thought, especially with news that the number of adult hay fever sufferers in the UK grew from 26 per cent in 2017 to 31 per cent last year. It’ll probably rise again, too. So then, tell it to us straight: with the weather turning at last, is it time to gather our loved ones and panic?
“From now on, certainly for the next three days, we’ve got high to very high risk for quite a lot of the country,” Dr Beverley Adams-Groom, chief pollen forecaster at Worcester University, told Sky News. “It’s not exceptional, forget about a pollen bomb, it’s what we would normally expect to see.”
That’s the attitude. Now, better close that window just in case.