News weekly update: Oct 24th 2025

Greetings, public health PHANs! This is our weekly news update for October 24, 2025, with a selection of upcoming events and articles about public health and air quality. If you want to keep getting this weekly news update, great! You don't need to do anything else. If you'd rather just have the monthly newsletter, you can manage your PHAN email subscriptions from the “manage preferences” link at the bottom of this email.

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Next Twitter Space,

Thurs, October 30: COVID-SAFE EVENTS

On Thursday, October 30, we'll co-host another Twitter Space with the great folks at Air Support Project. This Twitter Space will take place at 5pm PT/8pm ET and will be focused on COVID-safe events and gathering, with featured guests including Kyle Stevens, founder of Clean AirAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. Events in Seattle, and Nia Maxwell, proprietor of a clean-air events venue in Phoenix, AZ. We're excited to bring awareness about folks who are organizing COVID-safe events or making such events possible. Check our Twitter account for the link to the Space – we hope to see you there!

Community updates

We love Clean AirAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. Allies, a terrific nonprofit advocacy organization focused on the issue of clean airAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. in schools and working with California school systems. They're planning to launch a youth video contest in November and are asking for donations to give some worthy prizes to the contest winners. You can learn more about it and donate through the end of October on their donation page.

Upcoming events

October is National Indoor Air Quality Awareness Month! We're encouraging supporters to take some actions to improve indoor air quality, such as getting and using an air quality monitor, installing a high-efficiency air purifier in your home, and talking to your workplace and your children's school system about their HVAC systems. You can learn more about HVAC systems and why they're important for your air quality and health on our website.

Every Saturday evening: PandemicA global outbreak of a disease. Pals meetings on Zoom. Every Saturday at 5 pm PT/8 pm ET, the PandemicA global outbreak of a disease. Collaborative hosts a Zoom call that is inclusive and welcoming to all COVID-conscious folks. They offer several breakout rooms based on age groups, life situations, special interests, or just for general hanging out. Check their Google Document the day of the call for that week's Zoom link.

Every Monday & Sunday: Rising Hope meetings on Zoom. Rising Hope is a community of COVID-conscious folks that meet Monday evenings, plus Sunday mornings for church services. Contact them via Reddit.

Every Monday & Thursday: The World Health Network hosts a “WHN Café Call”, a virtual open space to meet others, welcome newcomers, and connect across teams. Join us Mondays and Thursdays at 10 am PT/1 pm ET in #1-general-dailycall on Slack. Community care starts with conversation. Join their Slack Workspace.

Every Day: World Health Network meetings. The World Health Network is a public health non-profit organization that creates communities around public health issues with daily meetings on various campaigns and public health issues. Check out their calendar to see if one of them fits your interests.

October 28, 2025: Webinar: The State of Global Air Quality Funding 2025. Join the Clean AirAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. Fund on October 28 at 6 am PT / 9 am ET for the launch of the 7th edition of their flagship report on the international funding landscape for air quality. The webinar will share the report’s findings and discuss both existing solutions and opportunities to increase air quality funding in an equitable manner. It will spotlight the overall gap in air quality funding and the regional disparities in access to that funding. It will also explore how countries and donors can overcome existing barriers and scale up funding for air quality, and will include a live Q&A session.

October 28, 2025: From Classrooms to Communities: The Future of Healthy Air Policy and Advocacy. The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) presents a webcast at 6 am PT / 9 am ET that brings together policy advocates, IAQ leaders, innovators and public organizations to discuss how policy and technology are driving real change. With schools leading the way, they’ll explore how coordinated action is transforming classrooms, workplaces and public spaces to deliver healthier environments for all.

October 31, 2025: State of Global Air 2025: Exploring Trends in Air Quality and Health Impacts Around the World. Join the Health Effects Institute’s State of Global Air initiative for an informative webinar on the State of Global Air 2025 report (releasing on October 23, 2025). The State of Global Air report and interactive website bring into one place a comprehensive analysis of the levels and trends in air quality and health for every country in the world.

October 31, 2025: IACC Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More Case Competition. The 2025 IACC Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More Case Competition takes place at Tauber Auditorium, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, 701 Tappan Ave, Ann Arbor MI 48109. It's free and they also have a virtual attendance option.

November 6, 2025: Safer Shared Air: Making the Invisible Visible Conference 2025.

This full-day conference organized by the Safer Air Project will take place at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, and online. The event will highlight why improving IAQ matters, examine the science and the evidence for mandating IAQ performance standards, and set out how we can make indoor air safer for everyone to breathe. This conference will bring together people with lived experience, advocates, policymakers, clinicians, scientists, and built-environment and industry leaders to highlight why IAQ must be recognized as a foundation for health, equity, and inclusion. Attendance is free, or you can support their work with a contribution when reserving a ticket.

November 7, 2025: Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More Defense forum from Mask Together America. This online forum will bring together advocates and experts on Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More to discuss how we can all protect ourselves from getting Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More and how we can help those who've been affected by it. Guest speakers will include:

November 14, 2025: PolyBio Fall 2025 Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More Symposium. Join PolyBio for an all-day webinar starting at 8 am PT / 11 am ET, with presentations on the latest research and findings from PolyBio-supported researchers. Institutions represented include Harvard Medical School, University of Pennsylvania, and University of California at San Francisco.

November 19-20, 2025: 3rd International Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More Conference, in Boston, MA. The event will be both in-person and online. This conference aims to raise awareness, clarify misconceptions, promote understanding, and stimulate discussion among healthcare professionals, investigators, policymakers, and community representatives on the clinical manifestations, management, plausible preventive and therapeutic options, and public health challenges related to Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More (or post-acute sequelae of COVID-19A disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, leading to respiratory illness.).

important news you may have missed

These are some stories that may have been overlooked in the onslaught of other news but that we think are important for everyone to know and to share with friends and family.

May 27, 2025: Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More is now the most common chronic health condition among children. Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More has now surpassed asthma as the most common chronic health condition for kids.

Sept. 30, 2025: Children and teenagers are twice as likely to develop Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More after an initial infection, a large new study has found.

LATEST NEWS

October 19, 2025: A new study shows that cancer patients who received a COVID vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapyTreatments that use the immune system to fight diseases. lived much longer than those who didn't.

October 20, 2025: Powerful first-person account from someone living with Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More who writes about RFK Jr shutting down the Office of Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More Research, gutting the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health PromotionEfforts to improve health and prevent disease., and derailing National Institutes of Health (NIH) trials and studies. This opinion piece is linked to dozens of articles and papers supporting the author's opinions.

October 21, 2025: A month after the Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More conference convened by RFK JR, it's unclear what's happening with the promised Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More consortium, although participants are still hopeful. "Ziyad Al-Aly, clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, similarly found the discussions productive. 'The interest is sincere, participation was active,' he said. 'I’m really eager to hear from them about what they see as the next steps and how can we [the scientific community] help.'"

October 21, 2025: National COVID-19A disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, leading to respiratory illness. trends data remain largely unavailable this week from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) due to the federal government shutdown. Out of the four metrics usually included in these updates, only one was updated in the last week: SARS-CoV-2The virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. concentration in wastewater decreased 22% between October 1 and October 8, and the national wastewater trend is “medium,” per WastewaterSCAN.

October 21, 2025: In the UK, former prime minister Boris Johnson was the subject of a COVID inquiry where he's facing accusations of closing down the schools for too long and not having good plans in place for when the schools did lock down from March to June 2020.

October 21, 2025: The New England Journal of Medicine and CIDRAP at the University of Minnesota will begin publishing “public health alerts” in the coming month to replace the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

October 22, 2025: The COVID inquiry in the UK has revealed that NHS doctors were instructed not to officially diagnose any children with Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More, as the NHS believed giving children that label could harm them, and they generally assumed Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More only affected adults. Because of this, the UK has very little reliable data on how many children are affected by Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More, although a little over 70,000 kids have reported symptoms of Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More after a second infection, and the Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More Kids organization supports around 11,000 families who have kids affected by Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More.

October 23, 2025: Avian flu detections in wild birds spike in the US. Six Canada geese in Champaign County, Illinois, died from H5N1, as did six Canada geese found in Kent County, Michigan. A swan in Shelby County, Missouri, was also recorded. New York’s Genesee County had 10 H5N1 detections, in mallards, wood ducks, and green-winged teal. In Colorado, four counties reported H5N1 identifications in ducks. South Dakota confirmed H5N1 in a gull in Minnehaha County and in a Canada goose in Codington County. The New York Times reported yesterday that the National Animal Laboratory Health Network, which is coordinated by the USDA, has suspended its weekly calls during the shutdown. Those calls had allowed labs to share information.

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