If you read this, you'll see that it matches the recs in our Lancet @CommissionCovid report on "The #FirstFour Strategies Every Building Should Pursue".
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Lancet: Commission building systems (give them a tune-up)
WH: "verify proper ventilation in federally owned buildings"
Lancet: improve ventilation
WH: "Providing tools and guidance documents for improving ventilation"
Lancet: Upgrade to MERV-13 filters
WH: "Established MERV-13 filters as minimum"
Lancet: Use portable air cleaners, if needed
WH: "Schools can use funding provided through the American Rescue Plan to improve ventilation in schools...portable air cleaners" (amongst other things)
This new across-agency focus on IAQ goes beyond the #FirstFour that we recommended, and represents and incredible advancement of #HealthyBuildings principles across the Fed Gov't. They are walking the walk.
Links to reports in next posts in the thread
FACT SHEET: DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES COMMIT TO CLEANER INDOOR AIR ACROSS THE NATION
The Lancet Covid-19 Commission, Task Force on Safe Work, Safe School, and Safe Travel
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The First Four Healthy Building Strategies Every Building Should Pursue to Reduce Risk from Covid-19
---- covid19commission.org/safe-work-trav…
Fixed it:
--> last year, the U.S. sold more educational services to the rest of the world than it sold in natural gas and coal **combined**
--> every $1 of research funded by NIH generates $2.56 in economic activity
--> more than 1.1M foreign students come to the U.S. each year to study and they contributed over $43 billion to the U.S. economy in foreign currency balances
--> students who came to the U.S. to study founded 55% of America’s 582 start-up companies worth at least $1 billion
--> cutting health research in Texas will cause a loss of 3,698 jobs and cost the economy $856M
--> The University of Alabama is the largest employer in the state
--> shortage of trained occ/env docs set to cost CA $1B
In @AMJPublicHealth I make an argument that adding in an economic lens is good public health practice, and I leverage an excellent article by @celinegounder and @Craig_A_Spencer.
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In the 1980s and 1990s, the then-new field of IAQ generated research documenting that ventilation rates above this minimum standard were associated with many health benefits.
Throughout the 1990s to 2000s, research efforts were also underway to evaluate—and expand—the understanding and value proposition of better indoor air quality.
The triple-digit temps in the southwest are catching headlines ("Record-breaking heat wave expected to extend stay in the West"). Dangerous heat, for sure, but, if you look at wet-bulb, you'll see that the headlines should be about the heat wave in the West **AND** Florida🧵
How we talk about hot weather is seriously flawed. As heat waves become more intense and more frequent because of climate change, we need to change the way we think about outdoor temperatures.
We’re looking at the wrong measurement. What matters is not how hot the air is but how hot the weather is to a human body. For that, we need “wet-bulb globe temperature.”
In my Editorial for @AMJPublicHealth on the history of ventilation, I share a story not many people know...
--> In late 2020, the ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force convened a group of experts and gave them an explicit task of making recommendations on ventilation rate targets...
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This team submitted their first recommendations to the ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force in 2021...
...but the recommendations were never released to the public.
In the fall of 2022, the Lancet COVID-19 Commission released a report which revealed to the public the previously unreleased recommendations made by ASHRAE’s internal committee.
The history of ventilation is fraught, indeed. And it hasn't been told through a public health lens. I was invited to write an Editorial for @AMJPublicHealth. My reflections on how we got here, and what needs to happen next.
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We are in the sick building era, ushered in by a historic mistake in the 1970s with the promulgation of a standard that lowered ventilation rates in nearly every building we spend our time, and which represented a gross departure from earlier health-focused higher ventilation targets.
The year 2020 marked a major turning point in the history of ventilation. SARS-CoV-2, spread predominantly indoors, found an ally in buildings designed to minimal “acceptable” ventilation standards.
This is bad public health. "Everyone stay indoors after 6pm for the next six weeks" (also happens to be the absolute nicest time of year in Massachusetts...) Totally unrealistic, totally unnecessary, and also will just be ignored, anyway.