News and Notes
CDC’s New Guidance: Layered Risk Reduction
Late last week, the CDC issued new guidance on K-12 school reopening. It was accompanied by a handbook from the US Department of Education. School districts are no doubt scrambling to digest this new guidance and evaluate their plans in light of it. Parents and teachers are wondering what this will mean for their schools. Here are some key...
Using Air Cleaners Correctly
Now that APS has started to deliver 1,450 portable air cleaners to classrooms, we have a few tips for any teachers or staff trying to figure out where to place them. When positioning the air purifiers in the classroom: A single air cleaner should ideally be placed centrally. If several purifiers are installed, the instruments should be...
Reproduction Rates for COVID-19 in Various Indoor Scenarios, including Schools
New modeling on transmission by aerosols compares the reproduction rates for different indoor scenarios, including schools with distancing and masks. The upshot of the article is that by taking into account the ventilation standards for public places and the behavior (time spent, type of breathing) of their occupants, the number of people...
Recent Tweets and Facebook Posts
The CDC covid tracker reports a total of 2,145 pediatric covid deaths. That’s 117 more deaths than the number reported two months ago on January 20th.
ONE WEEK LEFT TO DONATE!
We intend to donate more than 1,000 air purifiers to schools and other congregate spaces in 2023. Our campaign goal will help approx. 330 students breathe cleaner air.
Donate here: https://t.co/2szxxpqagU
#IAQ #CleanAir #IndoorAirQuality ...#Community
It’s official: The White House has surrendered to the virus https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/22/biden-disband-covid-team/?utm_source=reddit.com
As #hospitals drop COVID precautions, often increasing #nosocomial spread, there's an alternative path!
Hospitals can develop comprehensive programs to support #vulnerable ppl through the pandemic. In JAMA Oncology, we offer 10 evidence-based tips.
https://t.co/syfeD4Z78H
@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.
So APS quietly shut down PCR testing for kids/staff who are symptomatic. A note was on the door this week saying the fantastic service was gone. Now you can drive a half hour to Sterling.
@APSVirginia and @Resource_Path — this is a tremendous loss. Hard to find a PCR test today.
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