"I'm sorry to know that there are people forced to live day by day in a high pollution environment though."
It's funny, for > 99.9% in Beijing, they have no reasonable way to escape, due to family ties, personal financial disruption from having to leave a job/career, etc. But there are many (not only foreigners) who could much more easily uproot and move to another city or another country.
The thing is, you go on hoping it's going to get better over time, and pushing the decision further out, as 'another few months' of this pollution isn't going to make a serious health difference.