News weekly update: Dec 19th, 2025

Greetings, public health PHANs! We hope you're having a good December so far. This is our weekly news update for December 19, 2025, 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.

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DONATE TO PHAN TO HELP US support COVID-AWARE COMMUNITies

This holiday season, we're asking for your donation to help us expand on the work we've done this year with developing software tools like CARE and SAFER, as well as supporting our efforts to share evidence-based science and public health advocacy and to deliver high-quality masks and COVID tests to local organizations. This year we donated almost 17,000 masks to community groups on the ground. With your support, in 2026 we can reach more people, develop more tools, collaborate with more organizations, and deliver even more masks and COVID tests to communities that need them. Thank you so much for your support!

INVITE a friend to subscribe to our newsletter for a chance for them to win a subscription to The gauntlet

Tell your friends and alert the neighbors, because we're giving away ten free subscriptions to The Gauntlet from Julia Doubleday! Anyone who subscribes to PHAN's newsletters this month will be entered into a drawing for a year's subscription to Julia's news site.

Julia is a Long COVIDPersistent and new symptoms following recovery from acute COVID-19. More patient who pours her heart out by recording history, communicating life-altering science, and exposing political betrayal while also being vulnerable about her personal experiences. We think your friends and colleagues will be touched by her blog as we have been.

We're happy to announce that our “SAFER” and “CARE” software projects are now in full beta status, meaning they are fully functional as is but will soon get additional features and data. They will soon be open to public testing, and we'll have details shortly on how you can help find bugs, provide feedback, and suggest additional information. We recently held a demo of these projects for folks on this list and close friends of PHAN, and we'll also host another public demo for these projects in mid-January.

We're excited to show these projects to the PHAN community and hope you can join us next month!

AIR SUPPORT PROJECT FUNDRAISER

Our good friends at Air Support Project are holding an end-of-the-year fundraiser with a $2500 matching grant for all donations made before December 31st! Air Support Project is moving their low-cost high-quality modular MERV-13 air purifier VELLO from a concept to a physical prototype, and they need the community's help to bring it to production. As a 503c3, all donations are tax-deductible. If you support bringing low-cost high-quality air purifiersDevices designed to remove contaminants from the air to improve quality. to the general public, we hope you'll support Air Support Project this season.

Another good friend of PHAN, Clean AirAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. Allies, is sponsoring a creative video contest for young people to explain why indoor air quality in schools is important to them. 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 around the theme, “It’s Time to Care about School Indoor Air”. Clean AirAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. Allies is accepting video submissions until January 15, 2026.

Clean AirAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. Allies is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring that all schoolchildren, school workers, and their broader communities have access to the benefits of clean airAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. as an issue of educational, environmental, and health justice. We would love to see them get hundreds of entries. This contest will not only engage young folks in the cause for clean airAir free of pollutants, including viruses, bacteria, and harmful particles. and bring more awareness of the issue to their own schools, but it will also create terrific content for the entire clean-air community.

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 20, 2025: Trauma, Purity, & Who Gets Left Behind: a convo and Q&A about COVID organizing. A live Zoom conversation and Q&A at 12 noon PT on Sat, Dec 20, with Tara Parti and Dr. Caryn Zaner, a certified group therapist, about the impacts of trauma and perfectionism on organizing.

December 28, 2025: Writing Our Grief: A Virtual Space for the COVID-Cautious Community. A space for COVID cautious community to explore grief through writing. Sunday, December 28th, 3pm EST, on Zoom. No writing experience necessary, pay what you can. All grief is welcome, not only COVID grief.

January 29, 2026: WELL 2026 Summit New York. This summit hosted by the International WELL Building Institute invites you to participate in dynamic education sessions and engaging discussions on critical topics shaping the future of health, sustainability and well-being.

January 31-February 4, 2026: ASHRAE Winter Conference 2026 Las Vegas. This conference invites you to immerse yourself in a world of HVAC&R with 100+ technical sessions at the ASHRAE Winter Conference 2026 Las Vegas, and 1700+ exhibitors at the AHR Expo. Registration for the ASHRAE Winter Conference 2026 Las Vegas includes registration for the AHR Expo, also in Las Vegas, February 2-4, 2026.

THE STORY SO FAR…

Some of the more important news stories in 2025:

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. Therefore, 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). Long coronavirus disease (COVID), which affects an estimated 44.69-48.04 million people in the United States, is an ongoing public health concern that will persist as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2The virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.) continues to spread.

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 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 $9000 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.

December 15, 2025: US Weekly COVID update from the PandemicA global outbreak of a disease. Mitigation Collaborative (PMC). For additional data, visit the PMC Data website, and follow PMC Data author Mike Hoerger on Twitter.

🔹772,000 new daily infections based on wastewater-derived models, up from 479,000 the previous week

🔹1 in 63 people (1.6%) actively infectious

🔹Infections in the past week: 4,730,000, up from 2,940,000

🔹Infections in 2025: 228,000,000

🔹Cumulative infections per person: 4.85

December 17, 2025: NBC News: Whooping cough cases soar as vaccination rates drop.

and now for your moment of zen

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