True - PR investment in tourist image does tend to lead to lying, direct or indirect, by private business as well as by local administrations - pretty universal - but faking AQI, as in the link you presented, is really too much.

Can't give you recent information, but in my past experience, in the US pool conditions and supervision is generally pretty good - meaning, well, I can't remember wanting to complain about anything beyond maybe the Ph was not right (too much chlorine), and that they were sometimes crowded. No real problems in Hong Kong or Paris either - I'm a fairly enthusiastic swimmer. Yes of course there must certainly be exceptions to 'good'. Your comment about your reading about pool conditions and supervision is very vague - where is it that all these pool conditions are so bad? And in comparison to pool conditions - where - England? What are conditions that are not 'poor'? Obviously nowhere is anything perfect.

Dreary to be reminded that this kind of thing happens - reflects serious social irresponsibility, especially in (some, at any rate) provincial and local administrations - hard to know how widespread it is, but my hunch is that it is not nearly rare enough.

Sh*t happens, choose your game, good luck to everybody.
Actually, what my friend was referring to was the way those of us from more northerly, wetter climates begin to think it gets cold and rainy here, after a few years - but cf. where?
Not sure how the Middles Easterners, Mediterraneans, Southeast Asians and Indians cope.

AQI and tobacco processing - interesting. I haven't had severe eye irritation in Kunming, but I don't live in the north.
I pay no attention to UV index.