News and Notes

SR Leader Files Amicus Brief with Supreme Court in Support of Universal Masking
We are so proud of one of our leadership team members, attorney and special education advocate Wendy Pizer. On Monday, (January 24, 2022), she filed an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief in support of the parents who sued Governor Youngkin in Castillo v. Youngkin. This case challenges Governor Youngkin’s Executive Order that requires schools to...
PRESS RELEASE: We Support APS Keeping Masks for All, in Defiance of the Governor’s Anti-Science Proclamation
We support Superintendent Duran, and the Arlington County School Board, in announcing that under their constitutionally invested authority they will continue to mandate universal masking in our schools. This is an effective health measure that ensures all children have access to in-person education, and in a recent survey of more than 70 studies,...
APS’ Ionizers Got Lab Tested: The Results Weren’t Great
We have received the results from the Illinois Institute of Technology lab that is evaluating the efficacy of electronic air cleaners. They tested the Blueair 211 units (which APS bought). Results are disappointing to us. 📌 Project: https://t.co/ldULfLB2B1 📌 Report: https://t.co/kfEWZTIwKW There was some inaccurate information being put forth...
Recent Tweets and Facebook Posts
@ErikaO_O1 @APSVirginia @Resource_Path @janeth_janeth2b Low-income families, w/ many exposures from frontline jobs + school, w/ multigenerational caregivers, lacking access to dependable & affordable healthcare, will continue to carry the weight of “living” with COVID-19 unless ...#Arlington, Virginia, starts to prioritize, help them.
@ErikaO_O1 @APSVirginia @Resource_Path @janeth_janeth2b We thought Arlington was better than this. A pandemic should have brought SOME CHANGES that get carried forward. Instead, wealthy elites are OK with allowing very young, older citizens, unvaccinated (vax soon will cost a LOT of $$), those w/o... good healthcare to die/be disabled.
Daughter’s teacher has had covid 3x this year, in hosp now, had been intubated in ICU earlier this year. Why are teachers and unions not fighting for better protections?
Report after report has demonstrated that the lack of policies such as paid leave continues to undermine public health, and yet the need for these policies is virtually absent from discussions on how to plan for future threats. 6/
https://t.co/jd0MtS2ZnH
Equity remains a glaring omission of “next pandemic” conversation despite large and persistent COVID disparities. Yet, the groups and communities hit first and hardest by COVID remain an afterthought of future pandemic discussions.5/
https://t.co/0unpdLjsaF
Prisons were not only home to explosive and deadly epidemics but also served as what @_Eric_Reinhart has called epidemic engines—they drove transmission into high-risk communities. Yet, there’s persistent neglect of prisons and other congregate settings.4/
https://t.co/NpIxyKHUSu
Nursing homes represented up to 80% of total state COVID deaths in 2020. Yet, many nursing homes not only have unacceptably low booster and treatment coverage to weather COVID but also are not the focus of future pandemic planning conversations. 3/
https://t.co/dIDnhS24J3
Most working-age people who died in 2020 were low-paid essential workers, and many workers carried the virus into multigenerational households w/high-risk elders. Yet, workplace protections remain conspicuously absent from “next pandemic” conversations. 2/
https://t.co/QMvziY9hab
⚠️ 🚨 Do you support legislation to improve school air quality?
PLEASE sign/share this petition in support of IL HB3713 Clean Air for Healthy Equitable Schools (you DON'T need to live in IL). VOTE YES to healthier & safer schools.
https://t.co/JmnO4rsUIX
Watching privileged people argue everyone should just buy N95 masks, CO2 monitors, and other COVID prevention tools and have their own risk assessments shows just how vastly out of touch they are with so many people's lived experience.
Many people cannot afford these tools.
This ! + a reminder that in @ArlingtonVA, as a 1st step, we need to act to erase increased student meal debt (mostly $$ owed to @APSVirginia by moderate-low income families who earn just above the free-lunch threshold but are extremely burdened by inflation/post-pandemic) https://t.co/AikfiIPrpv
Virginia needs to think about this. Having a state government that boasts about a yearly budget surplus is foolish when kids go hungry. https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1636824655582597120
Watch how they rewrite history. Every single major study from 2020 showed that school closures had one the biggest impacts on reducing R compared to all other interventions (the exponential growth rate of the pandemic) - which likely saved hundreds of thousands of lives globally.
“With the removal of mask mandates in health care settings and essential places such as pharmacies, public transit and grocery stores, immunocompromised people are made outcasts. Telling disabled and chronically ill people to ‘stay home forever’ is cruel.” https://t.co/u8ohm0uD9K
Covid: 'Covid may hit cognitive skills up to 18 months post recovery'
H/t @KatePri14608408 https://m.timesofindia.com/city/pune/covid-may-hit-cognitive-skills-up-to-18-months-post-recovery/articleshow/98764334.cms
Katie Couric Media: 'This Chronic Condition Has Surged in Women Who Have Recovered From Covid'
'One study found that anywhere between 2 to 14 percent of people who get Covid-19 will also develop POTS'
https://t.co/XwMFQ6A5H1
One out of four parents have lied about their child's health status, potentially putting another family at risk.
“The study results, the authors said, suggest the need for policies and technologies that don't rely on the honor system or endanger privacy to protect public health.” File this under *entirely predictable* #SARSCoV2 #BringBackMasks #COVID #COVIDisAirborne https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/survey-26-parents-lied-about-childs-covid-status-flouted-public-health-rules