Newsletter: December 2025

Greetings, public health PHANs! Welcome to the December 2025 newsletter. We hope you're having a joyful, restful, and healthy holiday season and that 2026 brings you light and grace. In this edition we'll re-cap our activities for the year and preview our plans for 2026. We'd like to invite your feedback as well: please join us on a public Zoom call on January 15, see details below.

We are so grateful for your support this year, both financially and with your social media follows and shares, your participation in our Twitter Spaces, your collaborations with our work, and your feedback and verbal support. It all means a lot to us, and we're looking forward to talking with more folks and working with more great organizations in 2026.

If you know of events or organizations that may be of interest to our subscribers, please email us at media@phan.community. Follow us on social media for the latest updates: Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter/X.

After our first full year in operation, we've laid the foundations for what we believe will be a strong public health advocacy and software tools organization for 2026. Our annual report will outline our work and our progress, and it will be posted on our website shortly, This past year, our work has included:

We're looking forward to expanding on all of this work and more in 2026, with more features for the software tools we've developed this year, additional software tools, more collaboration with other organizations and individual activists and writers, more advocacy, more education, and more awareness about the need for clean indoor air to help people avoid getting sick.

Would you like to help shape PHAN's work for 2026? If so, please join us for a special Zoom meeting on January 15, 2026 at 10am PT / 1pm ET. We'll briefly review our work and progress in our first year of operations, present our proposed plans for 2026, and invite feedback and suggestions for what we could work on in 2026. We really want to know what you think! If you can't make it to the meeting but you have some feedback or suggestions for us, email us at info@publichealthactionnetwork.org.

This holiday season, we're asking for your donation to help us expand on the work we've done this year with fostering cooperation and collaboration among organizations and activists working for public health, COVID awareness, and healthy indoor air. We've developed strong relationships with organizations like Air Support Project, Clean AirAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. Allies, and Mask Together America, and we've promoted individual writers and activists like Julia Doubleday, Steph Fowler, Adam Van Bavel, and Keith Muise. With your support, we can devote more time and energy to collaborating with more organizations and individuals. Thank you so much for your support!

Something on the lighter side: we've created a special PHAN games site for you! This site has word games similar to Wordle and find-a-word, all based on public health terms. Enjoy these games as a change of pace that that also teach about public health and being COVID-aware.

PHAN & air support project co-hosting zoom calls twice a month starting on january 8th, 2026

Starting on January 8th, we'll co-host a twice-a-month Zoom call with the folks from Air Support Project (ASP), and you're invited to call in. The regular schedule will be on the first and third Thursdays of every month at 9 am PT / 12 noon ET, but because the first Thursday of the month falls on New Year's Day, this month the meetings will take place on January 8 and January 22. Our topics and guests are focused on COVID, Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More, other airborne pathogens, clean airAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles., ways to protect ourselves from airborne pathogens, current work being done by PHAN and ASP, and updates from COVID-aware activists and other organizations. We're looking forward to chatting regularly with PHAN supporters.

Stories from our blog: TRAVELING SAFELY

If you’re traveling for the holidays, you may be wondering about ways you can protect yourself and your family from COVID and other airborne pathogens, as well as thinking about how to talk to your family and friends about why and how they should be protecting themselves. Our blog post about how to travel safely in a non-COVID-safe world has information to help protect yourself and your family, with links to other resources.

Tell the teens in your life about the creative video contest that Clean AirAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. Allies is sponsoring. They're inviting young people in grades 9-12 to make and submit videos explaining why clean airAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. in schools is important to them. They launched their youth video contest on November 7, 2025 and are accepting video submissions until January 15, 2026. U.S. students age 13 or older, in grades 9-12 during the 2025-2026 school year, are invited to create and submit a 1- to 3-minute video with the theme “It’s Time to Care about School Indoor Air”. As Clean AirAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. Allies founder Liesl McConchie told us, “we know kids get it about why clean airAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. in schools matters, and we can't wait to see what kinds of videos they make about it”.

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.

Daily: The World Health Network hosts COVID-aware community meetings every day. Community care starts with conversation! Their Welcome page explains how to connect with their meeting groups.

You can find our listing of all upcoming events on our website's Events page, where you can subscribe to the calendar to have events automatically displayed on your Google Calendar, iCalendar, Outlook 365, or Outlook Live.

The main developments we've seen this year:

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.

July 11, 2025: A study that modelled the clinical course, health effects, and associated costs of a person with long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More found that that the average total cost of a long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More case can range from $5084-$11,646 (assuming symptoms only last 1 year) with 92.5%-95.2% of these costs being productivity losses. Thus the current number of long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More cases could cost society at least $2.01-$6.56 billion, employers at least $1.99-$6.49 billion in productivity losses, and third-party payers $21.0-$68.5 million annually (6%-20% probability of developing long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More).

Sept. 23, 2025: Groundbreaking “Healthy Indoor Air” high-level side event at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. This event led to the creation of Air Club, an international organization for anyone interested in healthy indoor air.

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 published in The Lancet has found.

November 21, 2025: A new study consolidates the known data on the economic effects of Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More and found the disease is imposing an average annual burden of $1 trillion globally and $9,000 per patient in the USA, with some individuals covering substantial out-of-pocket expenses. Annual lost earnings in the USA alone are estimated at approximately $170 billion.

and now for your moment of zen