News weekly update: Sept 19th 2025

Greetings, public health PHANs! This is a new weekly news update we'll provide every Friday. If you want to keep getting this, 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.

Upcoming events

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. PandemicA global outbreak of a disease. Pals 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 through their Reddit post.

Every Day: World Health Network meetings. The World Health Network is a public health non-profit organization that's done a terrific job in creating communities around public health issues. Check out their calendar to see if one of them fits your interests.

September 23rd, 2025 – Healthy Indoor Air: A Global Call to Action, a side-event for the United Nations General Assembly. The public is invited to join global leaders, policymakers, scientists and health experts for “Healthy Indoor Air: A Global Call to Action” – the inaugural High-Level Side Event on indoor air quality, to take place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Find more information at the event website.

October 1st, 2025: Zoom event to walk through our CLEAR and SAFER projects. We are so excited to show these projects because we think they'll be very useful resources for the COVID-conscious community. CLEAR is a smart-chatbot restricted to a curated set of over 10,000 peer-reviewed research papers about COVID and Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More. You'll be able to ask it questions about COVID and Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More, at any level of expertise from layperson to academician, and get answers that are pulled from our set of research papers and with links to citations which be can be viewed in a separate frame. SAFER is our global directory of COVID-conscious businesses and organizations like mask blocs and clean airAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. clubs. Users can find these businesses and organizations by category, keyword, or on our map. Link to the Zoom event to follow in our next email!

October 2nd, 2025: Twitter Space event with PHAN and Air Support Project: Subject and guests TBD. Watch this space!

October 20th & 21st, 2025: 2025 Canadian Symposium on Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More, St John's, Newfoundland, Canada: Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More Web and Memorial University of Newfoundland will host the 2025 Canadian Symposium on Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More. ​Attend in-person or online. They're providing a discounted rate of $5 for those with lived Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More experience. Tickets are on sale now, and sales end on October 3rd at 7:29am Newfoundland time. Get more information and purchase tickets at their website.

October 21st, 2025: Free in-person and online Atlantic Meetup as part of the 2025 Canadian Symposium: As part of the 2025 Canadian Symposium on Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More in St John's, NL, the organizers are hosting a free Canadian Atlantic provinces Meetup session on Tuesday, October 21st, at 7 am ET/8 am Atlantic time. This Meetup will be available in-person and online. Separate registration for this meetup is required – register for it here.

October 31, 2025: Free in-person and online Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More, ME/CFS, and POTS event in Ann Arbor. The 2025 IACC Case Competition takes place at University of Michigan's Ross School of Business located at 701 Tappan Ave Ann Arbor MI 48109, Tauber Auditorium. It's free and they also have a virtual attendance option. Contact the organizers at iaccrosscasecomp@umich.edu for more information. Register at their website as an attendee.

LATEST NEWS

Sept 10th, 2025: Sean Mullen released an educational – and fun! – COVID competency exam. Take the quiz and see how much you know about COVID, then share it on your social media accounts.

Sept. 13th, 2025: A school-age child in Los Angeles died of a rare complication from measles years after the original infection. The child got measles as an infant before they were eligible for their first measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) shot, and recovered, but years later they developed a rare, progressive brain disorder known as subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE).

Sept. 13, 2025: Denver Public Schools have equipped every classroom with air quality monitors and heat sensors. They're one of the early adopters of this technology and among the first districts in the country with the ability to monitor every classroom.

Sept 17th, 2025: A systematic review and meta-analysis published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases reported a pooled prevalenceThe total number of cases in a population at a given time. of Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More as 36% worldwide. Investigators from the University of Michigan and Yale School of Public Health in the United States searched publication databases for relevant studies through July 2024. A total of 429 studies, representing over 2 million individuals with confirmed COVID-19A disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, leading to respiratory illness., were included in the final analysis.

Sept. 17th, 2025: Former CDC director Dr Susan Monarez testified in front of the Senate health committee. She told the committee that RFK Jr is dismantling scientific expertise at the CDC and endangering public health, and said she believes if the anti-vaccine policies of the ACIP committee members are implemented as expected, preventable communicable diseases like polio will return.

Sept. 17th, 2025: California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law that formally allows the state to issue vaccine guidance that's separate from the federal government's. Governor Newsom signed AB 144, authorizing California to base future immunizationThe process by which an individual becomes protected against a disease through vaccination or natural immunity. guidance on credible, independent medical organizations rather than the CDC’s Advisory Committee on ImmunizationThe process by which an individual becomes protected against a disease through vaccination or natural immunity. Practices.

Sept. 18th, 2025: The West Coast Health Alliance, comprising the states of California, Oregon, Washing, and Hawaii, has issued its own new vaccine guidelines in a break from the CDC. "'"In the face of federal leadership that has completely failed us, the West Coast is taking action,' said [California] Gov. Gavin Newsom."

Sept. 18th, 2025: The states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York State, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and New York City announced that they have officially formed the Northeast Public Health Collaborative. This new multi-state collaborative will issue their own vaccine recommendations separate from the CDC and coordinate public health efforts.

Sept. 18th, 2025: Physicians in the state of Georgia are concerned about an uptick in tuberculosis cases. Tuberculosis is an airborne pathogenA microorganism that can cause disease..

Sept. 18th, 2025: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., convened a wide-ranging forum on Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More. The forum included Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More patients, clinicians, and researches, including PHAN board member Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly and Yale Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More researcher Dr. Akiko Iwasaki.

Sept. 18th, 2025: PHAN and Air Support Project co-hosted a Twitter Space about how to improve indoor air quality in schools. Hosts Tarz Ludwigsen from PHAN, and Sarah Masih and Melissa Smallwood from Air Support Project, welcomed speakers Peter Cantone and Lisa Greenfield in a really dynamic and hopeful discussion.

Sept. 19th, 2025: ACIP (Advisory Community on ImmunizationThe process by which an individual becomes protected against a disease through vaccination or natural immunity. Processes), the CDC panel that advises the CDC on vaccine policy, voted against requiring a prescription for COVID vaccines. But the meeting left healthcare professionals and experts deeply confused about whether the recommendations would make it more difficult for people to obtain COVID vaccines.

and now, your moment of zen

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