The movement to bring #CO2 sensors to school empowers parents, students, & teachers to advocate for their health; Reveals invisible factors of air quality & helps see how well ventilation is matched to room activity.

Great article by @EmilyAnthes. (1/🧵)
nytimes.com/2021/10/10/hea…
2/ If you are able to buy or borrow a CO2 sensor, stick it in the mesh water bottle pocket of your kid's backpack, pin into their shorts, or send in their lunchbox. Be creative. Make sure it isn't sealed away; the more airflow the better the reading.
3/ A key goal of #COVIDCO2 monitoring is to understand how well ventilation is matched to room activity & occupancy. Share the data with your school. If CO2 rises above 800 ppm, interventions needed to reduce build-up of aerosol & risk.
4/ In particular, scroll to point 9 (CO2 monitoring) on the #CDC page on Ventilation in Buildings under their COVID guidance.

"If unable to get below 800 ppm, increased reliance on enhanced air filtration (including HEPA air cleaners) will be necessary."
cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…
5/ The main source of CO2 indoors is either combustion (flames) or people exhaling. So if CO2 is building up, you can assume the invisible respiratory aerosols are too.

See e.g. this overview infographic via @zerocovidthai, via @RichardBarrow.
6/ Gathering CO2 data is often discouraged, however: “It’s possible that the school district may not be all that happy with this because I think it gives us a window into the fact that they may not actually be treating ventilation as seriously as they should be,” Dr. Huffman said
7/ As @EmilyAnthes points out in the NY Times article above, many parents have seen backlash against sending CO2 monitors. Some of those brief parent stories are here:

8/ I've been encouraging parents who want to send a CO2 sensor with a child to make sure they don't push a child past their comfort zone. Make sure the sensor won't be a distraction during the day. And it's important that the parent, not the student, bear the responsibility.
9/ There are lots of creative ways that people have been using as they send CO2 monitors:
10/ Once you've collected your data, make sure to share using the hashtag #COVIDCO2 and peruse for further ideas & support (Thx @mdc_martinus!). Some have also used #SchoolCO2.
11/ But #CO2 monitors are not just for school. I've loaned mine out to friends who have had fun seeing the invisible trends in various places they go.

Here is one set of anecdotes on how I played around with CO2 sensors in school, at work, and at home:
12/ Several sites allow people to share their CO2 data for the public to see. For example, see the site put together by @ariccio or the work that @SchoolAQFund is now beginning.
13/ I've gotten a lot of question about what CO2 sensor to buy. I use the #Aranet4 sensor extensively, but at ~$200+, it's not cheap.
[Aranet coupon: naltic.com/aranet4coupon.…]

Whatever you buy, make sure the sensor is NDIR (non-dispersive infrared).
docs.google.com/document/d/1K6…
14/ There are lots of tools available to understand how CO2 sensing can be leveraged best.

E.g. see this tool by @HarvardChanSPH & @j_g_allen (reminded today via @linseymarr)
15/ This is a summary of a somewhat more technical perspective on using CO2 as a proxy for airborne viral aerosol risk indoors, with great additional info gathered by @jljcolorado:
16/One way to think about indoor CO2 concentrations is to consider the "rebreathed fraction". For every ~400 ppm above the baseline (usually also ~400 ppm), 1% of your air is '#rebreathed' from someone else's exhaled air. E.g. via @CorsIAQ:
17/ This is a good one-slide summary of #RebreathedFraction using CO2 as a tracer, by @Poppendieck:
19/ Or search many more resources (using 'Cntrl-F') for "CO2" on the (1) Reports, Guides, Tools; (2) Media; or (5) Threads tabs here:
bit.ly/3fzmB16

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More from @HuffmanLabDU

9 Oct
A “wellness” clinic in Colorado Springs has been barred from giving COVID vax shots bc of improper procedures.

The clinic “typically offers medical aesthetic services, such as Botox injections, laser hair removal, acne treatment”
By @TATIANADFLOWERS
coloradosun.com/2021/10/08/dr-…
“More specifically, clinic employees did not monitor storage unit temperatures for vaccines at all times and failed to use equipment and practices that comply with guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the news release said.”
“It is unclear if the Colorado Medical Board, which regulates doctors and other licensed health providers, or any other state or federal agency will take action against Dr. Moma clinic leaders.”
Read 5 tweets
30 Sep
Good article by @tanyalewis314 w/ summary of why we need #BetterMasks & practical tips.

Again, consistent voices from aerosol scientists that improved masks important for Delta. Quoted here: @linseymarr @kprather88 @masknerd; & see @projectn95. (1/x)
scientificamerican.com/article/why-we…
2/ Given that N95 supply has been reported fine for months, strange the CDC article comment was that “CDC continues to recommend that N95 respirators should be prioritized for protection against COVID-19 in healthcare settings”

cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…
3/ Thread by author @tanyalewis314 about the article in @sciam on improved masks:
Why We Need to Upgrade Our Face Masks—and Where to Get Them
scientificamerican.com/article/why-we…
Read 4 tweets
29 Sep
Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in indoor environments: A comprehensive review

Article lives up to it's comprehensive billing. A few plots, points from the paper (1/x)

HT @WBahnfleth
Article info: tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
Full preprint: linkedin.com/feed/update/ur… Image
2/ Fascinating summary of weekly global COVID cases (left) and Google search for "COVID is airborne" (right) with some key moments highlighted. Image
3/ They summarized ASHRAE guidelines on how ventilation rate changes with occupant density for different types of spaces. Image
Read 5 tweets
24 Sep
Preprint: "Echoes Through Time: The Historical Origins of the Droplet Dogma & its Role in the Misidentification of Airborne Respiratory Infection Transmission"

Worth time to read through fascinating history that @jljcolorado & this group unraveled. (1/x)
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
3/ If you want to digest aspects of the story in deeper form, spoon-fed via Twitter thread, this is a long 🧵 that @jljcolorado put together in May along similar lines:
Read 4 tweets
23 Sep
Well, imagine my shock that school districts in Colorado requiring masks have lower COVID transmission. How much lower if they also used good ventilation, HEPA filters, outdoor lunch, etc. (1/x)

From @CDPHE data; Article by @johningold in @ColoradoSun
coloradosun.com/2021/09/23/cor…
2/ @CDPHE data via @johningold showing COVID cases for school-age kids in #Colorado districts w/ mask mandates (blue) are lower than those w/o mandates (orange). Yellow bar shows in-person school return.

But 6-17 yr cases very different at county level, so these wrap together.
3/ More data from @CDPHE via @johningold. Overall, COVID cases in 0-5 & 6-11 yrs age groups (no vax approval yet) still hovering near their peak levels as a Colorado state average.
Read 4 tweets
16 Sep
🔥 by @DrAliceVirgil1 in @PsychToday. She argues indoor school meals are not only dangerous during COVID, but further destabilize a sense of truth and reality among gaslit students.

Short 🧵 from article + links on lunchtime risk
(ht @kprather88)
psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compas…
2/ "The term gaslighting comes from the 1944 film Gaslight ... invalidating her reality and understanding of her experiences."

"Trust in the person or entity doing the gaslighting is essential for it to be an effective tool to undermine a person’s entire perception of reality." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_(1944_film)#/media/Fi
3/ "Yet, every day in countless lunchrooms across America, as both the New York and Chicago school districts have noted, children are eating and talking loudly, unmasked, in crowded indoor spaces without proper ventilation."
Read 9 tweets

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