Our new report, School Ventilation: A Vital Tool to Reduce COVID-19 Spread, recommends 6 priorities for how school administrators and decisionmakers could use flexible funds available under the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan to improve healthy air in schools (1/5)
The report recommends below priorities (2/5):
A: Bring in as much outdoor air as the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system will safely allow and upgrade filtration.
B: Purchase HEPA air filtration units to be placed in classrooms and common occupied spaces.
Priorities continued (3/5):
C: Use only proven technologies: appropriate ventilation, HEPA filtration, or ultraviolet germicidal irradiation.
D: Stop enhanced cleaning, disinfecting, “deep clean” days, and any other expensive and disruptive cleaning.
Priorities concluded (4/5):
E: Install mechanical ventilation systems where none exist and upgrade those that do not meet current standards.
F: Convene a federal task force dedicated to school air quality.
Many K-12 🏫 in our country do not have good ventilation. Today, we launch a new report, School Ventilation: A Vital Tool to Reduce #COVID19 Spread, highlighting ways to ensure good indoor air quality: centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/publi… (1/4)
The benefits of investing in healthy air in schools have the potential to outlast the COVID-19 pandemic. And with the flexible funds now available under the American Rescue Plan, we have the opportunity to invest in improving K-12 schools’ air quality. (2/4)
The authors make 5 specific recs on how administrators could use these funds. They also call for the US govt to convene a federal task force dedicated to school air quality. Read the full recs: centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/publi… (3/4)
Today we released a new special feature in the journal #HealthSecurity as part of @WHO joint call for articles on infodemics with 5 leading peer-reviewed journals in all related to the components of infodemics during PH emergencies - liebertpub.com/toc/hs/19/1
“infodemic” is used to denote a rapid, large-scale spread of health info & misinformation through a variety of media and informational channels. This overabundance of information—some accurate and some not—makes it difficult for people to differentiate between false & true info.
Articles on: practice & research-based analysis of misinfo, characteristics of successful online messaging, disinfo & epidemics in the context of biowarfare, understanding the impact of diff news sources on risk perception & use of community listening to respond to false info.
Today we release a new report, Staying Ahead of the Variants: Policy Recommendations to Identify and Manage Current and Future Variants of Concern. Read it here: centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/publi… (1/5)
The US currently faces 3 major SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, which could make coronavirus spread more easily or make our current therapeutics + vaccines less effective. As the pandemic unfolds, more variants will emerge. We can – and must – respond. (2/5)
This report reviews the status of current efforts around COVID-19 surveillance, sequencing + variant characterization, while offering policy recommendations for increasing the country’s capacity to respond to future variants. (3/5)