Greetings, public health PHANs! We hope you're having a good December so far. This is our weekly news update with a selection of upcoming events and articles about COVID, other airborne pathogens, and clean airAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles.. We're busy with developing some great software tools, developing our website, creating a podcast, and making connections with people around the world. If you want to keep receiving this weekly news update, great! You don't need to do anything else. If you'd rather just receive the monthly newsletter, you can manage your PHAN email subscriptions from the “manage preferences” link at the bottom of this email. |
|
Don't forget to mask up while you're traveling this holiday season! We want everyone to be healthy and COVID-free! |
|
LOCAL AIR QUALITY AND WASTEWATER DATA AT YOUR FINGERTIPS with our AirAware tool |
|
Now you can get local air quality and wastewater data at your fingertips with a great new tool on our website called AirAware. It's available on any page on our website, just click the small triangle in the AirAware title bar to collapse or expand it. It shows your local air quality and wastewater data for COVID-19A disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, leading to respiratory illness., Influenza A, and RSV, and it lets you click through to the sources. We've also made the code available on GitHub, which has instructions on how to set up the widget on your own website. |
|
SPECIAL ZOOM MEETING MID-DECEMBER TO DEMONSTRATE OUR “SAFER” AND “CLEAR” PROJECTS |
|
Later this month we’ll host a special Zoom meeting to demonstrate two projects we’ve been working on: CARE, and SAFER. CARE is a conversational tool/LLM about COVID, Long COVIDPersistent symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19., mitigations, and potential treatments (although we are not healthcare providers and you should always consult with your provider about any treatment). SAFER is a global directory of COVID-aware organizations and businesses. More details will come in the next weekly newsletter and on our social media. |
|
ONGOING WEEKLY COVID COMMUNITY MEETINGS |
|
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 with several breakout rooms based on age groups, life situations, and special interests. 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. |
|
December 13, 2025: COVID-Cautious Grief Space. This space is being offered by a private individual. Jenn has provided trauma-informed peer support in various settings, including 1:1 sessions and facilitated spaces for survivors of sexual violence and COVID bereaved individuals. This is a peer space to grieve in community with other COVID cautious people. There will be an option to name our grief, time to share in a large group and smaller break out rooms for us to connect. |
|
Some of the more important stories that have come out this year: |
|
🔹477,000 new daily infections, up from the previous report, based on wastewater-derived models 🔹1 in 103 people (1%) actively infectious 🔹Infections in 2025: 224,000,000 🔹Cumulative infections per person: 4.84 November 18, 2025: A ProPublica investigation found that bird flu is likely to be airborne and spread by the wind. "The experts stressed the analysis didn’t prove the wind directly carried bird flu from one farm to another, or that it was the only factor at play…But several experts said ProPublica’s analysis underscores the shortcomings of the government’s strategy, which fails to take the wind into account at all…After a devastating outbreak in France, researchers there discovered bird flu was traveling on dust and aerosols." November 26, 2025: The New South Wales Parliament in Australia has launched an inquiry into indoor air quality and is asking for comments from the public. "We would like to hear from groups and individuals who have insights into the impact of poor indoor air quality. We’re interested in lived experience, expert evidence and organisational submissions." December 3, 2025: The Association for Professionals in Infection ControlMeasures to prevent the spread of infections. and EpidemiologyThe study of disease patterns, causes, and effects in populations. (APIC) and the Society for Healthcare EpidemiologyThe study of disease patterns, causes, and effects in populations. of America (SHEA) have formed the Healthcare Infection Prevention Advisory Group (HIPAG), which aims to fill the gap left by the Trump administration’s dissolution of a federal advisory group on infection prevention in May. December 4, 2025: The lingering shadow of epidemics: post-acute sequelae across history. A review of post-acute infection syndromes (PAIS) across centuries, co-authored by Prof Akiko Iwasaki. "A wide variety of pathogens are associated with PAIS, including divergent classes of viruses, bacteria, and parasites. While each PAIS has a unique trigger and pathology, similarities in symptom profiles and immunological findings suggest these conditions may share features or involve overlapping biological mechanisms. Despite being well described in the literature, PAIS remain understudied relative to their high disease burden." |
|
and now for your moment of zen |
|
Donate, volunteer, share our posts! |
|
If you want to support our work, please donate! Your donations will go towards the projects we're developing and to pay a small team of staffers making it all happen. Another way you can support us is by sharing our social media posts on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Follow us, like our posts, and share them with your networks to increase our visibility. We really appreciate everyone who follows us and shares our posts! If you're interested in volunteering, we'd love to have you! We're looking for folks interested in: - creating videos and graphics
- writing blog posts
- working with machine learning and large-language models (LLMs)
- keeping up updated on public health policyLaws and regulations aimed at protecting public health.
- coordinating volunteers
If you match any of those needs, or you have other skills or experience that you think might help our work, we'll find a way for you to help! Fill out our contact form on our website and one of us will get back to you as soon as we can. |
|
Thank you for being a public health advocate, From the entire PHAN team |
|
8 The Green, STE A
Dover, DE 19901, United States |
|
|
|
08 Jan, 2026
10 Jan, 2026
