August 9, 2022 - Serena Williams — one of the greatest of all time in women’s tennis — has announced she’s retiring her racket to focus on her business ventures and family. 

After a historic career, including 23 Grand Slam championship wins, Williams shared her decision on Aug. 9 in Vogue magazine, writing that she “never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family. I don’t think it’s fair.”

Williams said accepting that she’d have to move on from playing tennis wasn’t easy. She hardly talked about it with her husband and couldn’t even speak with her parents about it. But in the midst of it all, she found comfort in speaking to a therapist. 

“I’ve been reluctant to admit that I have to move on from playing tennis,” she says. “It’s like a taboo topic. It comes up, and I start to cry. I think the only person I’ve really gone there with is my therapist!”

As one of the latest athletes to express her personal experiences with therapy, Williams and others, like four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka and seven-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles, are leading the way for mental health advocacy in the Black community. 

With nearly one-in-five Black people, or 6.8 million, reportedly living with mental illnesses, celebrities and researchers alike are working to end the Black mental health crisis affecting folks of all classes.

 

-SERENA WILLIAMS

Williams is also among the many Americans seeking to bring balance to work and life. According to a 2018 survey from Gartner, work-life balance is valued more than health benefits among employees. Like the tennis star, many people find it increasingly important to have an opportunity to focus on home and family. 

“I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me,” she said in the as-told-to article. 

Williams has had to overcome many obstacles on her way to the top — including having a baby that resulted in several health complications. 

Her story made national headlines, as Black women are three to four times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy-related health problems. 

Williams recognized that some might say she isn’t the GOAT because she didn’t pass Margaret Court’s 24 Grand Slam record — but she encouraged us to look at all that she accomplished as a mother and a player. 

“I went from a C-section to a second pulmonary embolism to a grand slam final,” Willaims wrote. “I played while breastfeeding. I played through postpartum depression. But I didn’t get there. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. I didn’t show up the way I should have or could have. But I showed up 23 times, and that’s fine. Actually it’s extraordinary. But these days, if I have to choose between building my tennis résumé and building my family, I choose the latter.”  

Nowadays, she’s enjoying time with her 5-year-old daughter, Olympia — and in a nation that bombards us with negative images and stories of dysfunction, Williams regularly provides a much needed visual of healthy Black motherhood. 

“I want to teach her how to tie her shoes, how to read, where babies come from, and about God. Just like my mom taught me,” Williams wrote of her time with Olympia. “As she grows, it’s something different every month. Lately, she’s been into watching baking shows, which we do together. Now we bake with Play-Doh, which is so much fun. She loves this game called The Floor Is Lava, where you have to do whatever you can to avoid touching the ground,” she wrote. 

While the court lights shut off on Williams’s tennis career, the community will always remember the beaded-hair Black girl who made a profound statement in the sport.  

“…this is it, the end of a story that started in Compton, California, with a little Black girl who just wanted to play tennis.”

NEW ORLEANS— (Aug. 11/2022) This Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022 the New Orleans Health Department (NOHD), with the support of the New Orleans Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), New Orleans EMS (NOEMS), and the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH), will be hosting a monkeypox vaccination event at the French Market near the old U.S. Mint in the French Quarter immediately after the official Red Dress Run event.  Following current LDH guidance, we will only vaccinate individuals who meet the eligibility criteria.  

WHAT: Monkeypox vaccine event after red dress run to those who qualify 

WHEN: SATURDAY, Aug. 13, 2022 (weather permitting)

TIME: 11:00 am-3 pm or until out of vaccines - first come, first served - no appointments

WHERE: French Market (80 French Market Place, New Orleans, corner of Barracks St. 

Due to the popularity of recently planned vaccine events, we anticipate a large crowd on Saturday.  COVID-19 booster shots will also be available at this event.

The mission of the nationally accredited New Orleans Health Department (NOHD) is to promote, protect, and improve the health of all in our community through equitable policies, programs, and partnerships. NOHD is committed to building a healthy and equitable New Orleans by supporting the well-being of everyone in the region. Learn more at www.nola.gov/health.

by Jenny Manrique, Ethnic Media Services

August 10, 2022 - She identifies as African American, Mexican, and Puerto Rican. He is Korean American but didn’t speak English until he was school age. They met and got married in Los Angeles and had four children who they are “raising intentionally” in a multicultural, multiracial, and multilingual home.

At a time of increased political polarization and racial tension, Sonia and Richard Kang’s story offers an alternative narrative that is increasingly becoming the norm in the United States.

“I met Richard and we have children who are multiracial and I'm thinking: how are we going to make this better for them,” said Sonia, whose father is African American and whose mother is Mexican.

“Growing up I just always knew I didn't fit in very well,” she recalled of her upbringing in the 80s in Hawaii and LA, a time when blond hair, blue eyes, and big waves were the standard. “I was darker skinned and had tight curly hair. I had the surname Smith in a predominantly Latino area in school but spoke Spanish. So I always stuck out.”

It was the same for Richard, Sonia’s husband. “I could tell there was something different about our family,” he says of his childhood growing up as a Korean speaker in a predominantly white neighborhood.

The couple shared their experience during an August 5 media briefing organized by Ethnic Media Services looking at the rise in interracial marriages amid a backdrop of increasing hate crimes and deepening political polarization.

Data from the 2020 census shows that “mixed race” is the fastest growing category under racial identity, and according to the Pew Research Center, about 17% of new marriages are interracial couples. All of that comes as cities nationwide saw a significant surge in racially motivated attacks during the Covid 19 pandemic, rattling communities and contributing to growing tensions.

According to Justin Gest, associate professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, the rise in interracial marriages offers a counter to the increasing “separation, polarization and some of the violence that we're seeing in our country.”

Gest, author of the 2022 book “Majority Minority,” which looks at societies where dominant religious or racial groups lost their numerical advantage, says families like the

Kangs are a “powerful way for people to overcome the divisive politics that take place in societies undergoing a lot of demographic change.”

That includes the US, where demographers predict that by 2045 non-Hispanic whites will no longer be the majority.

“When people are intermarrying, it basically disarms the politics of polarization and division,” Gest notes. “These relationships blur those boundaries. They don't allow politicians and others to use fear mongering to divide us.”

Interracial marriages were prohibited in the US until the 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving vs. Virginia. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of interracial unions jumped threefold, according to census data.

The most common unions are white and Asian, and white and Latino, with only 20% of all interracial couples being between two nonwhite partners. California is the leader when it comes to the number of interracial marriages, with Hawaii a close second.

And according to Allison Skinner Dorkenooh, assistant professor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences & Social Psychology at the University of Georgia, there has been a “great increase” in media representation of interracial couples, which correlates with data showing 94% of Americans approving of such unions.

But, Dorkenooh adds, there is still a lingering bias toward same race marriages in many families, including Richard’s.

“I was going to marry Sonia no matter what,” he says, describing his parents’ initial rejection of his soon-to-be wife. It was only after his father fell ill, and then after his parents met their grandchildren, “that they really opened their hearts to us.”

The couple decided early on to raise their children in a multi-lingual house. “We've called it ‘culture proofing our home,’ to safeguard their identity,” Sonia said. “We made sure that we brought in products, books, and movies, all that look like our family in an authentic way.”

Sonia, president of the non-profit Multicultural Families of Southern California, created a children’s clothing business named Mixed-Up Clothing, with the intention to use fashion as a vehicle to talk about issues of culture, diversity, and inclusion.

“I knew there was something in clothing that brings in this sense of self, and I wanted to duplicate that feeling,” she said. “The fact that folks are getting it and taking the time to see that there's beauty in diversity has really helped to steer the conversation.”

Jazzmyne Public Relations (Monday, August 8, 2022) - "The Inflation Reduction Act passed by the Senate this weekend will stand the test of time as one of the most significant pieces of legislation in this century. It galvanizes and invests in aggressive action to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. We commend Leader Schumer, Senator Manchin, Vice President Harris and Senate Democrats for a job well done.

“Twenty years ago, I co-authored the Air of Injustice Report with Martha Keating, Clean Air Task Force and Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda, we noted that climate change disproportionately affects the health, economic and social well-being of African Americans. We also projected an increase in heat-related deaths and were out front connecting asthma and air pollution. Two decades later, Blacks remain more likely to live in poverty making them more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change including storms, floods, fires and health issues. The Inflation Reduction Act signals a new era of opportunity for Black America to participate fully in the transition to a low-carbon, clean energy economy, creating healthier and more prosperous communities.

“Lowering energy costs is especially meaningful for low-income families. According to ACEEE, on average, Black households pay a greater share of their income on energy and experience a median energy burden 64 percent greater than white households. Reducing this burden will provide much-needed relief on family budgets. Investments in energy efficiency will make more efficient appliances, electric vehicles, and upgrades like heat pumps and solar panels within reach.

“The transition to clean energy technologies and resilient infrastructure will also create new high-wage jobs with the potential to disrupt cycles of poverty. EPA Administrator Michael Reagan announced an allocation of 60 billion for environmental justice projects in the Inflation Reduction Act.

“The HBCU Green Fund, Black colleges and universities, and environmental justice organizations are eager to work in partnership with the Federal government to unleash the enormous creativity, innovation and energy emanating from the communities we serve. As implementation gets underway, the HBCU Green Fund, through our HBCU Fellowship program, is preparing HBCU students to help connect their communities to information and resources that will support training, energy efficient upgrades, growing businesses and expanding programs.”

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Felicia Davis is the founder of HBCU Green Fund and works to advance climate justice with a focus on sustainability for historically black colleges and universities. Based in Atlanta, GA, Davis has been a climate justice advocate for more than two decades.

August 5, 2022 - Though federal health officials have declared monkeypox a public health emergency, there’s no cause for panic among school and district leaders, epidemiologists told Education Week Friday.

The COVID-19 pandemic may have primed public expectations about such an emergency declaration, but the monkeypox outbreak remains smaller and—unlike COVID-19—unlikely to be spread through brief incidental contact or interactions, experts said.

Just five of the 7,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the United States were children, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While there are likely to be additional pediatric cases as the country works to contain the outbreak, school leaders should be informed, not alarmed, said Wafaa El-Sadr, professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University.

“It’s really important to distinguish that this is not COVID-19. I would allay that anxiety,” El-Sadr said. “Obviously, there is always a concern when there is an outbreak of any infectious disease, but at the same time, there is no cause for panic.”

Here’s what school leaders need to know about monkeypox and about the emergency declaration.

Monkeypox is a rare disease that was first documented in humans in 1970 and has caused occasional outbreaks since, according to the CDC. Symptoms include a blister-like rash that lasts for two to four weeks, fatigue, fever, aches, nasal congestion, and cough. The virus is rarely fatal, the agency said in guidance to physicians.

The virus is spread primarily through direct, person-to-person contact or through contact with items like towels and bed linens that have touched an infected person’s rash, the CDC says.

Children who are at higher risk of severe illness include those 8-years-old and younger, children with compromised immune systems, and those with skin conditions like eczema or severe acne. Health officials expect they will identify additional cases in children as testing becomes more widely available.

Though federal health officials have declared monkeypox a public health emergency, there’s no cause for panic among school and district leaders, epidemiologists told Education Week Friday.

The COVID-19 pandemic may have primed public expectations about such an emergency declaration, but the monkeypox outbreak remains smaller and—unlike COVID-19—unlikely to be spread through brief incidental contact or interactions, experts said.

Just five of the 7,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the United States were children, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While there are likely to be additional pediatric cases as the country works to contain the outbreak, school leaders should be informed, not alarmed, said Wafaa El-Sadr, professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University.

“It’s really important to distinguish that this is not COVID-19. I would allay that anxiety,” El-Sadr said. “Obviously, there is always a concern when there is an outbreak of any infectious disease, but at the same time, there is no cause for panic.”

Here’s what school leaders need to know about monkeypox and about the emergency declaration.

What is monkeypox? Can children get it?

Monkeypox is a rare disease that was first documented in humans in 1970 and has caused occasional outbreaks since, according to the CDC. Symptoms include a blister-like rash that lasts for two to four weeks, fatigue, fever, aches, nasal congestion, and cough. The virus is rarely fatal, the agency said in guidance to physicians.

The virus is spread primarily through direct, person-to-person contact or through contact with items like towels and bed linens that have touched an infected person’s rash, the CDC says.

Children who are at higher risk of severe illness include those 8-years-old and younger, children with compromised immune systems, and those with skin conditions like eczema or severe acne. Health officials expect they will identify additional cases in children as testing becomes more widely available.

The current outbreak has spread to the United States and Europe, and the vast majority of documented cases have been in LGBTQ patients—specifically men who have sex with men, federal health officials said Thursday. The disease is not believed to be sexually transmitted, but it has spread through intimate, skin-to-skin contact, the CDC health guidance said.

The White House, in coordination with other federal agencies, is focusing much of its messaging efforts on that affected population while acknowledging that the virus can spread in the general population. Agencies have ramped up vaccinations and testing, and officials plan to work with LGBTQ advocates and community groups to spread messaging about risks and symptoms of monkeypox.

When Illinois officials announced that an adult worker at a Champaign child-care facility tested positive for monkeypox Friday, they stressed that the virus does not spread as easily as COVID-19. Children who attend the center will be screened for the illness, but none had tested positive Friday, they said.

The CDC and other federal agencies have not released any official guidance for school and district leaders about monkeypox as children have represented very few cases.

The pediatric cases documented in the United States have been transmitted between members of the children’s households at home, said El-Sadr, of Columbia.

“While COVID-19 is transmitted by casual contact and by people who have no symptoms at all … with monkeypox it’s quite different,” she said. “The main route of transmission requires prolonged skin-to-skin contact.”

Although it’s possible that contact could occur in school settings or through contact sports like wrestling, it’s still likely to be a relatively rare occurrence, El-Sadr said.

School and district leaders should listen to local health officials and encourage children with bumps, rashes, or lesions to consult a doctor, she said.

And, because transmission is largely through direct contact, it’s unnecessary for school leaders to prepare detailed contact tracing plans like they did for COVID-19, El-Sadr said.

Monkeypox “is not nearly as contagious as some other diseases children routinely pass from one person to another, but it has happened, and school administrators should be aware it could happen,” said Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Because the disease has largely been associated with LGBTQ people, a population that is subject to stereotype and discrimination, school leaders should be prepared to confront misinformation and stigma if parents become aware that student has contracted a case.

That may mean providing basic information about the illness, clarifying that it can be spread through non-sexual contact, and connecting families to resources from trusted sources, she said.

For example, in San Francisco, one of the cities that has seen rising cases of monkeypox, school district officials have shared information from the local health department on the school system’s website.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra declared a public health emergency Thursday.

Such a declaration will allow federal officials to more easily direct resources like vaccines and therapeutics and to collect and share state-level information about cases.

“We are applying lessons learned from the battles we’ve fought—from COVID response to wildfires to measles, and will tackle this outbreak with the urgency this moment demands,” he said in a statement.

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Evie Blad is a reporter for Education Week who covers issues important to school and district leaders. Blad has covered a range of issues, including state and federal policy, child well-being, civil rights, and school safety. Before coming to Education Week in 2013, she worked at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the statewide newspaper in Arkansas, where she covered K-12 education, higher education, and health care.

“TurnUp Thursday is fun and invigorating. I love exercising to music.“-- D. Farmer

"Frederick is very knowledgeable about body movement and breathing as you exercise. Love, love these classes." -- R. Allen

You can choose to attend one or more of the following webinars.

 Aug 4, 2022 10:30 AM

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By Josephine McNeal, Guest Columnist

JULY 29, 2022 - Creating life and starting or growing a family can bring pure joy to a woman’s life. It can also be a source of anxiety and hidden fear. In addition to the physical changes that occur during pregnancy and post-delivery, approximately 20% of Black women may experience mental health challenges. Unfortunately, the rates worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic as Black communities, including pregnant women, have been disproportionately impacted by the disease.

The disparity has resurfaced as a pressing issue for both lawmakers and health care providers after multiple bills to combat the crisis were introduced in Congress in 2021. Data also show that Black women continue to face a greater risk of childbirth complications than white women.

Regardless of factors such as lifestyle and socioeconomic status, Black women have historically had higher rates of medical complications, including hypertension and hemorrhaging, poorer practitioner-patient advocacy and communication, and less postpartum mental and physical health care support. These inequities put Black mothers at a higher risk for perinatal and postnatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) such as depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. It is estimated that Black mothers' risks for PMADs is twice that of the general population.

All too often, the insufficient access to quality and culturally sensitive physical and mental health care discourages Black mothers from seeking appropriate prenatal care. There is a direct correlation between higher infant mortality and lower levels of postnatal care for both the mother and baby.

While bringing more awareness to maternal mental health needs has led to various national efforts to improve maternal health care, Black mothers disproportionately face disparities in accessing and receiving appropriate health services. In the United States, Black women are three times more likely to die from childbirth, and Black infants are two times more likely to die before their first birthday.

Efforts such as Black Maternal Health Awareness and organizations such as Shades of Blue, founders of Black Maternal Mental Health Week, have helped further the awareness of these issues.

In addition, health fairs in Black communities are critical for preventive care, such as the Stay Well Health Fairs that are part of the We Can Do This Public Education Campaign. These events provide more accessible health screenings, in-person access to Black healthcare professionals, and COVID-19 testing, vaccinations, and boosters to Black communities, including moms.

Screenings and preventive care, especially for Black women entering motherhood, are valuable for overall health. The Stay Well events are an innovative way to reach the Black community by creating a space for health access and equity where the need is greatest.

“I made the decision to get myself and my children both vaccinated and boosted to protect their health,” said Josette Brown, a mom of two and panelist at the Stay Well Health Fair in Washington, D.C.

The Stay Well Health Fairs take place across the country, and the latest locations can be found here. Stay Well Health Fairs will make stops in Florida and South Carolina in the coming months.

Stay Well Tallahassee | July 23, 2022 | 10am – 2pm

Florida A & M University

2101 Wahnish Way

Tallahassee, Fl 32310

Stay Well Myrtle Beach | August 13, 2022 | 10am - 2pm

Smith Jones Recreation Center

1700 Smith Jones St. Conway, SC 29527

The health screenings offered are just one way to keep Black moms and their loved ones happy and healthy.

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Josephine McNeal is a Public Relations Specialist at CMRignite, a strategic communications agency that specializes in developing cause and behavior change marketing for major nonprofits and government agencies. CMRignite, a subcontractor for Fors Marsh Group, works directly on the Health and Human Services’ COVID-19 public education campaign, We Can Do This, a national initiative to increase public confidence in and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines while reinforcing basic prevention measures

July 25, 2022 - Gwyneth Paige didn’t want to get vaccinated against COVID-19 at first. With her health issues — hypertension, fibromyalgia, asthma — she wanted to see how other people fared after the shots. Then her mother got colon cancer.

“At that point, I didn’t care if the vaccine killed me,” she said. “To be with my mother throughout her journey, I had to have the vaccination.”

Paige, who is 56 and lives in Detroit, has received three doses. That leaves her one booster short of federal health recommendations.

Like Paige, who said she doesn’t currently plan to get another booster, some Americans seem comfortable with the protection of three shots. But others may wonder what to do: Boost again now with one of the original vaccines, or wait months for promised new formulations tailored to the latest, highly contagious omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5?

The rapidly mutating virus has created a conundrum for the public and a communications challenge for health officials.

“What we’re seeing now is a little bit of an information void that is not helping people make the right decision,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, a professor of infectious diseases at the Emory University School of Medicine.

Del Rio said the public isn’t hearing enough about the vaccines’ value in preventing severe disease, even if they don’t stop all infections. Each new COVID variant also forces health officials to tweak their messaging, Del Rio said, which can add to public mistrust.

About 70% of Americans age 50 and older who got a first booster shot — and nearly as many of those 65 and older — haven’t received their second COVID booster dose, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency currently recommends two booster shots after a primary vaccine series for adults 50 and older and for younger people with compromised immune systems. Last week, multiple news outlets reported that the Biden administration was working on a plan to allow all adults to get second COVID boosters.

Officials are worried about the surge of BA.4 and BA.5, which spread easily and can escape immune protection from vaccination or prior infection. A recent study published in Nature found BA.5 was four times as resistant to the currently available mRNA vaccines as earlier omicron subvariants.

Consistent messaging has been complicated by the different views of leading vaccine scientists. Although physicians like Del Rio and Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College of Medicine see the value in getting a second booster, Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee, is skeptical it’s needed by anyone but seniors and people who are immunocompromised.

“When experts have different views based on the same science, why are we surprised that getting the message right is confusing?” said Dr. Bruce Gellin, chief of global public health strategy at the Rockefeller Foundation and Offit’s colleague on the FDA panel.

Janet Perrin, 70, of Houston hasn’t gotten her second booster for scheduling and convenience reasons and said she’ll look for information about a variant-targeted dose from sources she trusts on social media. “I haven’t found a consistent guiding voice from the CDC,” she said, and the agency’s statements sound like “a political word salad.”

On July 12, the Biden administration released its plan to manage the BA.5 subvariant, which it warned would have the greatest impact in the parts of the country with lower vaccine coverage. The strategy includes making it easier for people to access testing, vaccines and boosters, and COVID antiviral treatments.

During the first White House COVID briefing in nearly three weeks, the message from top federal health officials was clear: Don’t wait for an omicron-tailored shot. “There are many people who are at high risk right now, and waiting until October, November for their boost — when in fact their risk is in the moment — is not a good plan,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the CDC.

With worries about the BA.5 subvariant growing, the FDA on June 30 recommended that drugmakers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna get to work producing a new, bivalent vaccine that combines the current version with a formulation that targets the new strains.

The companies both say they can make available for the U.S. millions of doses of the reformulated shots in October. Experts think that deadline could slip by a few months given the unexpected hitches that plague vaccine manufacturing.

“I think that we have all been asking that same question,” said Dr. Kathryn Edwards, scientific director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program. “What’s the benefit of getting another booster now when what will be coming out in the fall is a bivalent vaccine and you will be getting BA.4/5, which is currently circulating? Although whether it will be circulating in the fall is another question.”

The FDA on July 13 authorized a fourth covid vaccine, made by Novavax, but only for people who haven’t been vaccinated yet. Many scientists thought the Novavax shot could be an effective booster for people previously vaccinated with mRNA shots from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna because its unique design could broaden the immune response to coronaviruses. Unfortunately, few studies have assessed mix-and-match vaccination approaches, said Gellin, of the Rockefeller Foundation.

Edwards and her husband got COVID in January. She received a second booster last month, but only because she thought it might be required for a Canadian business trip. Otherwise, she said, she felt a fourth shot was kind of a waste, though not particularly risky. She told her husband — a healthy septuagenarian — to wait for the BA.4/5 version.

People at very high risk for covid complications might want to go ahead and get a fourth dose, Edwards said, with the hope that it will temporarily prevent severe disease “while you wait for BA.4/5.”

The omicron vaccines will contain components that target the original strain of the virus because the first vaccine formulations are known to prevent serious illness and death even in people infected with omicron.

Those components will also help keep the earlier strains of the virus in check, said Dr. David Brett-Major, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. That’s important, he said, because too much tailoring of vaccines to fight emerging variants could allow older strains of the coronavirus to resurface.

Brett-Major said messages about the value of the tailored shots will need to come from trusted, local sources — not just top federal health officials.

“Access happens locally,” he said. “If your local systems are not messaging and promoting and enabling access, it’s really problematic.”

Although some Americans are pondering when, or whether, to get their second boosters, many people tuned out the pandemic long ago, putting them at risk during the current wave, experts said.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said he doesn’t expect to see the public’s level of interest in the vaccine change much even as new boosters are released and eligibility expands. Parts of the country with high vaccine coverage will remain relatively insulated from new variants that emerge, he said, while regions with low vaccine acceptance could be set for a “rude awakening.”

Even scientists are at a bit of a loss for how to effectively adapt to an ever-changing virus.

“Nothing is simple with covid, is it? It’s just whack-a-mole,” said Edwards. “This morning I read about a new variant in India. Maybe it’ll be a nothingburger, but — who knows? — maybe something big, and then we’ll wonder, ‘Why did we change the vaccine strain to BA.4/5?’”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation. 

NEW ORLEANS (July 23, 2022) - Black entrepreneurs are starting businesses at higher rates than other groups. In the face of systemic barriers, we’ve built businesses from the ground up, transformed our communities and contributed meaningfully to the economy. In the words of physician Sydney Labat, “We are truly our ancestors’ wildest dreams.”

There are countless stories of Black businesses who found ways to pivot in the worst of circumstances–and it appears we have more hills to climb. Headlines are filled with economic challenges facing small businesses: inflation, workforce shortages and disrupted supply chains. A new survey of graduates of Goldman Sachs’ business education program, 10,000 Small Businesses, recently found that 78% of small business owners say the economy has gotten worse in the past three months. It also found that 93% are worried about the US economy experiencing a recession in the next 12 months.

But there is some good news. Sixty-five percent say they are optimistic about the financial trajectory of their business this year.

Although the economic forecast may not be bright, I know Black-owned small businesses are a collective sign of hope for the economy.

Entrepreneurs are the first to face economic headwinds and the first to creatively maneuver around them, signaling to the rest of the country what’s to come. Often Black businesses are disproportionately affected, and at times we must think on our feet and adapt faster than our counterparts.

I am living proof of what it means to be battle-tested. My perseverance has paid off, and I’ve seen my impact resonate within New Orleans and beyond.

Although the path to success for many Black-owned small businesses is not smooth, outside intervention and investments in our businesses have proven to be profound. One of the resources that allowed me to future-proof my company, BAMM Communications, was Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses program.

This program was demanding, and it was causing me to take time away from working in my business. I would often wonder why I was taking time away from my deteriorating business to sit in a class and plan for greater success when, at that time, the business wasn’t showing signs of success at all. What I would eventually realize was that my growth opportunity was what would allow my business to overcome the challenges it was facing.

In December 2016, I graduated from the Goldman Sachs 10KSB program, and my business was still alive and running. I’d come out of the program with a growth opportunity and a plan to effectively implement it, as well as a greater skill set for how to run my business.

While programs like 10,000 Small Businesses are helping small business owners, there is still more work to be done. We must make our voices heard because our businesses are key to economic recovery locally and nationwide.

This week, I joined 2,500 other small business owners at Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Summit. The event will be the largest gathering of small businesses in the U.S., celebrating hometown innovators like me. We are also calling on lawmakers for better public policies. Top on our agenda is a call to modernize the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), which has not been reauthorized since 2000.

Doing business in the U.S. changes every day, and the SBA mission and policies need to reflect today’s market, not that of 22 years ago.

As we met with policymakers, we voiced our concerns and hope they hear our call to further assist our employees in obtaining safe and affordable childcare, and to make sure the government is living up to its promises of opening its federal contracting opportunities to more women- and minority-owned small businesses.

When we ensure the prosperity of Black businesses, we can ensure the health and wealth of the country, as well as local communities. And while we often hear about the plight of Black businesses, let’s tell a different story moving forward. A story which reclaims what our ancestors knew to be true: with great trials comes the chance to be triumphant. A story that believes our best is yet to come.

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Brandon C. Armant is a marketing guru, a skilled journalist, and a motivational speaker. For the last ten years, Brandon has served as the President and CEO of BAMM, a Communications Company that develops creative marketing campaigns, as well as broadcast and digital media productions through its subsidiary, BAMM Network, a digital platform that elevates Black & Brown voices with content for Millennials and Generation Z.

by Ayana Archie, NPR

FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2022 - The BA.5 omicron subvariant, which is now the most prevalent coronavirus strain in the United States, is four times more resistant to COVID-19 vaccines, according to a new study.

The strain, which is considered "hypercontagious," according to the Mayo Clinic, is more defiant against messenger RNA vaccines, which include Pfizer and Moderna.

The BA.5 strain represented 65% of cases from July 3 to 9, according to data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

It is contributing to increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations and admissions to intensive care units across the country.

But vaccines still provide much better protection than going without the safeguards.

Unvaccinated people have about a five times higher chance of contracting the virus than those who are vaccinated and boosted, while chances of hospitalization are 7.5 times higher, and chances of death are 14 to 15 times higher, said Dr. Gregory Poland, head of the Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group.

"Let me make a clear, clear point here that's a little tough to hear: Whether you've been vaccinated, whether you've been previously infected, whether you've been previously infected and vaccinated, you have very little protection against BA.5 in terms of getting infected or having mild to moderate infection," he said. "You have good protection against dying, being hospitalized or ending up on a ventilator."

The CDC still recommends getting tested if you experience COVID-19 symptoms, and wearing masks depending on the number of cases where you live.

The more contagious omicron variant was first detected in the U.S. in December 2021.

As the BA.5 strain becomes more popular, incidences of the BA.1, BA 1.1 and BA.2 omicron subvariants have declined.

By Josephine McNeal, Guest Columnist, 6/17/22

President Joe Biden declared June to be Black Music Appreciation Month, a time to celebrate the powerful influence Black music has had on American culture and heritage.

Originally created by former President Jimmy Carter in 1979, the appreciation month is reestablished every year with a presidential proclamation.

Time and time again, Black musicians have contributed a soundtrack for people’s lives and a safe expression of emotions.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, they performed at-home concerts. Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” and other songs expressed the emotions felt by so many navigating a life-stopping virus in the United States.

Music by Black artists also transformed our social media newsfeeds into safe havens. In 2020, social media became a space for the Black community to engage with lighthearted and uplifting content, such as R&B duo Chloe x Halle performing songs from their tennis court. Social media influencers, including Jalaiah Harmon, used catchy dance challenges as a way to bring happiness across people’s timelines as they quarantined at home.

Some Black artists, including rapper Lupe Fiasco, have also taken to social media to advocate for COVID-19 vaccines.

After saying his fans would need to be vaccinated in order to attend his 2020 concert, the rapper received harsh pushback from people on Twitter. Despite the comments, he did not backpedal. He told fans his decision came from searching for options outside of vaccines.

With more outdoor and indoor music events this summer, it’s crucial for Black Americans to get shots into their arms.

“Be vigilant, vaccinated, boosted, double boosted, sanitized and distanced,” said Gary Hines director and producer of the three-time Grammy Award-winning inspirational group Sounds of Blackness. “This will be the first full celebration of Juneteenth, which is now an official, national holiday. Our latest song release, ‘Juneteenth,’ is an anthem about the themes of this season: celebration, liberation and freedom. And part of that freedom and celebration should be vaccination.”

The bottom line: The pandemic became a space where Black musicians took the time to make sense of the world around them and defiantly tell their stories, personal and political. Their musical talents and uplifting mantras have moved us onward and upward. With more vaccinations, we can keep moving in the right direction.

For resources and toolkits to help you build vaccine confidence in your community, visit the We Can Do This website.

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By Amanda Sealy, CNN, 4/10/22

(CNN) - Two-plus years into the Covid-19 pandemic, you probably know the basics of protection: vaccines, boosters, proper handwashing and masks. But one of the most powerful tools against the coronavirus is one that experts believe is just starting to get the attention it deserves: ventilation.

"The challenge for organizations that improve air quality is that it's invisible," said Joseph Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings Program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

It's true: Other Covid tools are more tangible. But visualizing how the virus might behave in poorly ventilated spaces can help people better understand this mitigation measure.

Allen likens it to cigarette smoke. "If I'm smoking in the corner of a classroom and you have low ventilation/filtration, that room is going to fill up with smoke, and everyone is breathing that same air."

Then apply that to the outdoors.

"I could be smoking a cigarette, you could be a couple of feet from me, depending which way the wind was blowing, you may not even know I'm smoking."

If you're indoors, you could be breathing in less fresh air than you think.

"Everybody in a room together is constantly breathing air that just came out of the lungs of other people in that room. And depending on the ventilation rate, it could be as much as 3% or 4% of the air you're breathing just came out of the lungs of other people in that room," Allen said.

He describes this as respiratory backwash.

"Normally, that's not a problem, right? We do this all the time. We're always exchanging our respiratory microbiomes with each other. But if someone's sick and infectious ... those aerosols can carry the virus. That's a problem."

"We've known for decades how to keep people safe in buildings from infection, from airborne infectious diseases like this one," Allen said.

From the beginning of the pandemic, Allen and other experts have waved red flags, saying that the way we were thinking about transmission of Covid-19 -- surfaces, large respiratory droplets -- was missing the point.

"Hand washing and social distancing are appropriate but, in our view, insufficient to provide protection from virus-carrying respiratory microdroplets released into the air by infected people. This problem is especially acute in indoor or enclosed environments, particularly those that are crowded and have inadequate ventilation," hundreds of scientists stated in an open letter in July 2020.

Eventually, the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged what the experts had been saying all along: that Covid-19 could also spread by small aerosolized particles that can travel more than 6 feet.

The coronavirus itself is very small -- about 0.1 microns -- but that doesn't affect how far it can travel.

"The size of the virus itself doesn't matter because, as we say, the virus is never naked in air. In other words, the virus is always traveling in respiratory particles that develop in our lungs. And those are all different sizes," Allen said.

Singing or coughing can emit particles as large as 100 microns (almost the width of a human hair), he said, but the virus tends to travel in smaller particles -- between 1 and 5 microns.

The size of these particles affects not only how far it can travel but how deeply we can breathe it into our lungs, and how we should approach protecting ourselves from this virus.

"When you're talking about an airborne disease, there's the what's right around you, you know, the sort of the people who you know can cough in your face, the 6 feet thing, and then there's the broader indoor air, because indoor air is recirculated," said Max Sherman, a leader on the Epidemic Task Force for the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

"Outdoors is safer than indoors" has become an accepted mantra with Covid-19. Allen points out that protecting ourselves indoors is where our focus should always be, even beyond the pandemic.

"We're [an] indoors species. We spend 90% of our time indoors. The air we breathe indoors has a massive impact on our health, whether you think about infectious disease or anything else, but it just has escaped the public consciousness for a long time," he said.

Making sure our indoor air is healthy is not that complicated, Sherman said. "You just want to reduce the number of particles that might be carrying Covid or any other nasty [virus]."

The way you do that is through ventilation and filtration.

Filtration -- just like it sounds -- is filtering or cleaning the air, removing the infected particles. But think of ventilation as diluting the air. You're bringing more fresh air in to reduce the concentration of those particles.

Dilution is exactly why we haven't seen superspreader events outdoors, Allen says.

"We have hardly any transmission outdoors. Why is that? Unlimited dilution, because you have unlimited ventilation. And so, even in crowded protests or outdoor sporting events like the Super Bowl, we just don't see superspreading happening. But if we did, we'd have the signal be loud and clear. We just don't see it. It's all indoors in these underperforming, unhealthy spaces."

Even before the advent of HVAC systems, ventilation was integrated into many building designs.

The 1901 Tenement Housing Act of New York required every tenement building -- a building with multifamily households -- to have ventilation, running water and gas light.

Builders added ventilation to many of these buildings with a shaft in the middle that runs from the roof to the ground, allowing more airflow.

"In the late 19th century, people are finally starting to understand how disease spreads. So airshafts and the accompanying ventilation were seen as a solution to the public health crises that were happening in tenement buildings," said Katheryn Lloyd, director of programming at the Tenement Museum. "There were high cases of tuberculosis, diphtheria and other diseases that spread. Now we know that spread sort of through the air."

Today, we're facing the same challenge.

"Getting basic ventilation in your home is important, full stop," Sherman said.

One of the easiest, cheapest ways to do that is to open your windows.

Open doors or windows at opposite ends of your home to create cross-ventilation, the Environmental Protection Agency advises. Opening the highest and lowest windows -- especially if on different floors -- of a home can also increase ventilation. Adding an indoor fan can take it even further.

"If a single fan is used, it should be facing (and blowing air) in the same direction the air is naturally moving. You can determine the direction the air is naturally moving by observing the movement of drapes or by holding a light fabric or dropping paper clippings and noting which direction they move," the EPA says.

Just cracking a window can help a lot, Allen says: "Even propping a window open a couple inches to really facilitate higher air changes, especially if you do it in multiple places in the house, so you can create some pressure differentials."

It's important to note that if you have an HVAC system, it must be running to actually circulate or filter the air. The EPA says that these systems run less than 25% of the time during heating and cooling seasons.

"Most of the controls these days have a setting where you can run the fan on low all the time. And that's usually the best thing to do because that makes sure you're getting you're pushing air through the filter all the time and mixing the air up in your in your home," Sherman advised.

This could be something to keep in mind if you're going to have visitors or if someone in the household is at higher risk for severe illness.

Choose the most efficient filter your HVAC system can handle, and make sure you routinely change the filters.

Filters have a minimum efficiency reporting value, or MERV, rating that indicates how well they capture small particles. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers recommends using at least a MERV-13 filter, which it says is at least 85% efficient at capturing particles from 1 to 3 microns.

If that's not an option, portable air filters can also work well, but the EPA says to use one that is made for the intended room size and meets at least one of these criteria:

When you walk into a space, there's no good rule of thumb to look around and gauge how well-ventilated it might be, and that can be a challenge when people have been tasked with assessing their own risk.

Allen suggests starting with the basics: Make sure you're up to date with vaccinations and aware of where Covid-19 numbers stand in your community.

But then it gets harder. Even the number of people in a space isn't a giveaway of a higher-risk situation.

"The more people in there could be higher-risk because you're more likely to have someone who's infectious, but if the ventilation is good, it really doesn't matter."

Ventilation standards are based on "an amount of fresh air per person, plus the amount of fresh air per square foot," Allen explained. "So if you have a good system, the more people that enter the room, the more ventilation is brought in to the room."

One tool that can help you assess ventilation in a room is a CO2 monitor, something Allen wishes he saw more in public spaces. He likes to carry a portable one, which you can order online for between $100 and $200.

"If you see under 1,000 parts per million, generally, you're hitting the ventilation targets that are the design standard. But remember, these are not health-based standards. So we want to see higher ventilation rates."

Allen prefers to see CO2 at or under 800 parts per million. He also notes that just because a space has low CO2 levels, it might not be unsafe if filtration is high, like on an airplane.

Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Lisa Herring says the installation of 5,000 air filtration units -- enough for every classroom -- in her school district is "a gamechanger."

The district had begun upgrading HVAC systems in several schools even before the pandemic, but federal funding allowed it to add filtration units during a crucial time when masks have become optional.

"It gives a greater level of confidence for us as a system to know that our air filtration systems are in place," Herring said.

School districts all over the country have been jumping at the opportunity for ventilation upgrades made possible by an influx of federal funding.

An analysis in February by FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy, found that public schools had earmarked $4.4 billion for HVAC projects, which could grow to almost $10 billion if trends continued.

New Hampshire's Manchester School District is pouring almost $35 million into upgrading HVAC systems, and interim Superintendent Jennifer Gillis says federal funding is "absolutely key."

"You think about a district of our size with all the competing demands and the need to be fiscally responsible, a $35 million project, that's a large project to introduce to our budget. Having those funds available to us lets us do 19 projects -- and 19 projects in a very short span of time."

For Gillis, ventilation has been an important mitigation strategy and an unobtrusive way to keep people safe.

"It's something that most in the building don't think about, but it's a very passive way for us to create safety within the schools. Since the beginning, the goal was always 'let's get our kids in, let's get our staff in, but let's do it in a way that's safe for all of them.' "

Good ventilation isn't only about keeping students safe from Covid-19, Sherman says. It can also improve their performance in school.

"They're going to learn better; they're going to be awake more; they're going to be more receptive. They're going to be healthier if they've got good indoor air quality," he said.

Helping solidify ventilation's role in the Covid-19 battle, the Biden administration announced a Clean Air in Buildings Challenge last month.

The challenge calls on building operators and owners to improve ventilation by following guidelines laid out by the EPA.

The main actions include creating a clean indoor air action plan, optimizing fresh air ventilation, enhancing air filtration and cleaning, and engaging the building community by communicating with occupants to increase awareness, commitment and participation.

The message may seem overdue, but it's one that Allen enthusiastically welcomed.

"The White House used its pulpit to say unequivocally that clean air and buildings matter. That's massive. Regardless of what you think about what will happen next with implementation or what happens with the funding. That is a crystal-clear message that is already being heard by businesses, nonprofits, universities and state leaders. I see these changes happening already."

Schools and early care and education (ECE) programs are an important part of the infrastructure of communities as they provide safe, supportive learning environments for students and children and enable parents and caregivers to be at work. Schools and ECE programs like Head Start also provide critical services that help to mitigate health disparities, such as school lunch programs, and social, physical, behavioral, and mental health services. This guidance can help K-12 school and ECE program administrators support safe, in-person learning for K-12 schools, and keep ECE programs open, while managing the spread of COVID-19. Based on the COVID-19 Community Levels, this guidance provides flexibility so schools and ECE programs can adapt to changing local situations, including periods of increased community health impacts from COVID-19.

K-12 schools and ECE programs (e.g., center-based child care, family child care, Head Start, or other early learning, early intervention and preschool/pre-kindergarten programs delivered in schools, homes, or other settings) should put in place a core set of infectious disease prevention strategies as part of their normal operations. The addition and layering of COVID-19-specific prevention strategies should be tied to COVID-19 Community Levels. This CDC guidance is meant to supplement—not replace—any federal, state, tribal, local, or territorial health and safety laws, rules, and regulations with which schools and ECE programs must comply.

Schools and ECE programs play critical roles in promoting equity in learning and health, particularly for groups disproportionately affected by COVID-19. People living in rural areas, people with disabilities, immigrants, and people who identify as American Indian/Alaska Native, Black or African American, and Hispanic or Latino have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. These disparities have also emerged among children. School and ECE administrators and public health officials can promote equity in learning and health by demonstrating to families, teachers, and staff that comprehensive prevention strategies are in place to keep students, staff, families, and school communities safe and provide supportive environments for in-person learning.

Though this guidance is written for COVID-19 prevention, many of the layered prevention strategies described in this guidance can help prevent the spread of other infectious diseases, such as influenza (flu), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and norovirus, and support healthy learning environments for all. The next section describes everyday preventive actions that schools and ECE programs can take.

For more information on CDC COVID-19 Community Levels, visit:

Schools and ECE programs can take a variety of actions every day to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, including the virus that causes COVID-19. The following set of strategies for everyday operations should be in place at all COVID-19 Community Levels, including low levels.

Staying up to date on routine vaccinations is essential to prevent illness from many different infections. Vaccines reduce the risk of infection by working with the body’s natural defenses to help safely develop immunity to disease. For COVID-19, staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccinations is the leading public health strategy to prevent severe disease. Not only does it provide individual-level protection, but high vaccination coverage reduces the burden of COVID-19 on people, schools, healthcare systems, communities, and individuals who are not vaccinated or may not develop a strong immune response from the vaccines. Schools, ECE programs, and health departments can promote vaccination in many ways:

People with symptoms of infectious diseases, including COVID-19, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and gastrointestinal infections should stay home and get tested for COVID-19. People who are at risk for getting very sick with COVID-19 who test positive should consult with a healthcare provider right away for possible treatment, even if their symptoms are mild. Staying home when sick can lower the risk of spreading infectious diseases, including the virus that causes COVID-19, to other people. For more information on staying home when sick with COVID-19, including recommendations for mask use for people experiencing symptoms consistent with COVID-19, see Quarantine and Isolation.

In accordance with applicable laws and regulations, schools and ECE programs should allow flexible, non-punitive, and supportive paid sick leave policies and practices. These policies should encourage sick workers to stay home without fear of retaliation, loss of pay, loss of employment, or other negative impacts. Schools should also provide excused absences for students who are sick, avoid policies that incentivize coming to school while sick, and support children who are learning at home if they are sick or in quarantine. Schools and ECE programs should ensure that employees are aware of and understand these policies and avoid language that penalizes or stigmatizes staying home when sick.

Schools and ECE programs can optimize ventilation and improve indoor air quality to reduce the risk of germs and contaminants spreading through the air. Funds provided through the U.S. Department of Education’s Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief (ESSER) Programs and the and the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Programs and the Department of Health and Humans Services’ Head Start and Child Care American Rescue Plan funds can support improvements to ventilation; repairs, upgrades, and replacements in Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems; purchase of MERV-13 air filters and portable air cleaners; as well as implementation of other public health protocols and CDC guidance. Ventilation recommendations for different types of buildings can be found in the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) schools and universities guidance. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Air in Buildings Challenge provides specific steps schools and other buildings can take to improve indoor air quality and reduce the risk of airborne spread of viruses and other contaminants. CDC does not provide recommendations for, or against, any manufacturer or product.

Washing hands can prevent the spread of infectious diseases. Schools and ECE programs should teach and reinforce proper handwashing to lower the risk of spreading viruses, including the virus that causes COVID-19. Schools and ECE programs should monitor and reinforce these behaviors, especially during key times in the day (for example, before and after eating and after recess) and should also provide adequate handwashing supplies, including soap and water. If washing hands is not possible, schools and ECE programs should provide hand sanitizer containing at least 60% alcohol. Hand sanitizers should be stored up, away, and out of sight of younger children and should be used only with adult supervision for children ages 5 years and younger.

Schools and ECE programs should teach and reinforce covering coughs and sneezes to help keep individuals from getting and spreading infectious diseases, including COVID-19.

Schools and ECE programs should clean surfaces at least once a day to reduce the risk of germs spreading by touching surfaces. If a facility has had a sick person or someone who tested positive for COVID-19 within the last 24 hours, the space should be cleaned and disinfected. For more information, see Cleaning and Disinfecting Your Facility. Additionally, ECE programs should follow recommended procedures for cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfection in their setting such as after diapering, feeding, and exposure to bodily fluids. See Caring for Our Children...

(MAY 18, 2022) - Black people continue to be among the communities hit hardest by COVID-19. But with more research on Long COVID coming to the surface, experts say the nature of the pandemic is changing.

Dr. Carol Oladele, director of research at Yale’s Equity Research and Innovation Center, says while experts don’t have all the answers about the long-term COVID condition, studies are underway and past trends suggest the Black community could be heavily affected.

“All the studies are all trying to figure out what are the factors that cause people to continue to have symptoms beyond four weeks after infection. People thought that Black Americans would be most affected by Long COVID because they were disproportionately affected by COVID,” she says.

“The State of Black America and COVID-19, ” a report released by the Black Coalition Against COVID in March details how Black families were impacted by primary infections during the pandemic.

For example, 1 in 310 Black children experienced the loss of a parent or caregiver compared to 1 in 738 white children between April 2020 and June 2021, according to the report.

But once the acute phase of the virus — with its accompanying fever, sore throat, body aches and other symptoms — has passed, too many Americans aren’t getting better.

 "Black people are more likely to work in essential worker positions, live in crowded conditions, and be incarcerated — which increases the risk of contracting the virus." 

An estimated 7% of people who contracted COVID are expected to experience Long COVID — 4.4% of people who weren’t hospitalized, 21.7% of people who were hospitalized, and 36.5% of people who were admitted to intensive care, according to report from Nature.

“The evidence so far shows that Black Americans and folks who are Hispanic are more likely to experience symptoms that are characterized as Long COVD,” says Oladele, who contributed to the Black Coalition Against COVID’s two-year assessment.

People with Long COVID are dealing with fatigue, shortness of breath, and headaches — among other symptoms — for weeks or months after contracting the virus. The report from Nature shows Black people are more likely than other demographics to experience acute kidney injury, diabetes, chest pain, and cough.

Oladele says in January, a time when there appeared to be an overall reduction in cases, Black Americans were still seeking care, seeing the highest rates of COVID-associated hospitalizations since the pandemic started.

“It was sort of masking the continued burden that Black Americans were continuing to experience in a negative way,” she says. “The hospitalization rates were high, meaning people were sick enough to need the hospitalization.”

The disproportionate impact of COVID on the Black community is due in part to preexisting social and structural inequities. Black people are more likely to work in essential worker positions, live in crowded conditions, and be incarcerated — which increases the risk of contracting the virus.

And while Black folks continue to work and live in places with dense populations, mask mandates are being lifted.

These factors could also contribute to disparities in Long COVID, Oladele says. To reduce the potential of this happening, she says it’s important for the Black community to be represented in studies. And in order for that to happen, barriers keeping Black people from participating must be addressed.

“It’s really important to include communities in these studies that are seeking to identify novel treatments because they were hardest hit,” Oladele says. “And they’re the ones that stand to benefit since they were hardest hit. So, thinking about ways to increase representation by addressing those social and structural barriers to clinical trial participation or study participation.”

Oladele says a part of this is addressing transportation and childcare issues. “A lot of Black Americans are overrepresented in essential worker jobs and work jobs that involve hourly wages,” Oladele says. “So, you know, maybe compensating people for missing hourly wages and embedding study sites within communities that were hardest hit.”

On top of high rates of infection, Black folks faced discrimination and bias while seeking COVID care, a poll conducted by the NAACP reveals.

64% of Black people who participated said they’re less likely than white people to be offered testing and 60% felt they’re less likely to have everything done to save their lives in the hospital.

Now researchers are saying the burden of Long COVID is falling heavily on non-hospitalized people. With that, the medical system could be challenged with surges in acute infections and caring for COVID-19 survivors who will require substantial support.

Still, Black people must keep care in mind when considering Long COVID.

“I think it’s particularly important for Black people to know that it’s important to seek treatment and share that you’re symptomatic with your providers — if you have a primary care provider,” Oladele says. “We don’t yet know the long-term consequences of Long COVID, but it’s really important to share that you’re continuing to have symptoms.”

MAY 16, 2022 - The waterfall of one-time federal funds that deluged schools in 2020 and 2021 is driving big investments and posing steep challenges for the school leaders tasked with managing them, a new report by the Association of School Business Officials finds.

School districts invested the first two of three rounds of pandemic aid (known colloquially as ESSER I, II, and III, for “Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief”) in equipment to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and help students stay connected to school while stuck at home.

The report also says they’re concentrating attention for the third and largest round of funding on helping students recover from the pandemic and making long-overdue improvements to technology and facilities.

Some districts, like the Lincoln County schools in Oregon, are waiting to use their full set of ESSER funds in hopes that the pandemic and acute labor shortages relax in the near future. The report quotes an anonymous official from that district:

“We very much want to provide additional afterschool learning opportunities, targeted tutoring, targeted supports for underserved students, and mental health support staff, but cannot hire enough support staff and substitutes to run our schools at normal levels, much less add these programs.”

But the federal government is urging schools to move quickly and invest in other ways if staffing is proving too difficult right now, said Robert Rodríguez, assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy development.

“These dollars need to be put to use now to meet the urgent needs of our learners, and to help support the environments in which they’re recovering and growing and reacclimating to their learning,” Rodríguez told Beth Frerking, Education Week’s editor-in-chief, during a virtual conversation at the 2022 Education Week Leadership Symposium on Wednesday.

Here are four takeaways from the school business officials association’s report, which reflects a survey of 154 districts across 35 states:

Some school funding advocates and media outlets have criticized districts for taking their time spending the funds. But 42 percent of respondents said more than three-quarters of their funds are already obligated, which means they’re legally or contractually committed to be spent on certain concrete items. More than half of that group said all of their funds are already obligated.

Still, a similar proportion—37 percent—of districts said less than half their ESSER allocation was obligated as of Jan. 31. That number has likely shrunk since then. But a sizable chunk of districts are still working out how to make the most of this unprecedented federal investment.

That’s not always because districts are dragging their feet, though. Eight percent of respondents said that as of the end of January, their state still hadn’t approved their ESSER plan document, which meant they couldn’t proceed with spending the money. Florida and Missouri, for instance, waited until a year after Congress approved the American Rescue Plan funding package in 2021 before allowing districts to access their entire allocation.

More than half of respondents said they’re using ESSER II and III funds to address unfinished learning. That’s not surprising. Lost instructional time has been one of the major talking points in the fallout from the pandemic, even if not everyone agrees on how severe the problem is. For ESSER III, the most recent funding package that was approved in March 2021 districts are required to spend at least 20 percent of their allocation addressing it.

The range of approaches to addressing unfinished learning is vast. The most common one, with 63 percent of respondents, is expanding summer and enrichment opportunities for students. Just over half of districts using ESSER funds to address unfinished learning are adding specialist staff to support student needs.

More than a third of respondents are investing ESSER funds in each of the following categories under the umbrella of addressing unfinished learning:

A smaller subset of districts is hiring staff to reduce class sizes (18 percent); extending the school day or year (17 percent), offering flexible timing for classes on weekends or evenings (12 percent), and expanding early childhood programs (7 percent).

Proponents of improving school facilities during COVID-19 emphasized the importance of improving air quality by upgrading HVAC systems. Many districts are years or even decades behind on HVAC repairs, and 47 percent of districts that answered the survey used ESSER funds to catch up.

The next most common facilities upgrade, though, is one that’s flown under the radar: providing safer drinking water (28 percent).

The water crisis in Flint, Mich., last decade brought renewed attention to high levels of lead and other toxic chemicals in school water fountains. Since then, many districts have sought to convert fountains to touchless water bottle refilling stations, which tend to curb the use of plastic water bottles that harm the environment, and reduce the spread of bacteria and germs. West Virginia recently passed a bill requiring all newly constructed or renovated public schools to be outfitted with water refilling stations.

ESSER has helped pursue that goal for districts in DeKalb County, Ga., Meridian, Miss., and Shelby County, Tenn.

Other facilities improvements include repairs to existing facilities (19 percent), building outdoor learning spaces (17 percent), and new construction (4 percent).

But while some critics of ESSER spending have blasted districts that have spent that money to upgrade athletic facilities, only 3 percent of districts have done so.

Facing competing pressure to spend quickly and produce strong results, more than half of districts (53 percent) said figuring out whether to spend quickly or to strategically extend the funds over a long period of time is a major challenge. More than half (56 percent) also said they’re concerned about the fiscal cliff that will appear in a couple years, when ESSER money runs out and key spending priorities might not be sustainable in the long term.

Slightly more than a third of responding districts said labor shortages are a major challenge; 34 percent cited supply chain effects on product shipment delays; and 21 percent said they feel constrained by timelines that may prevent facilities projects from coming to fruition.

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Mark Lieberman is a reporter for Education Week who covers school finance. He previously covered technology and online learning for Education Week and, before that, for Inside Higher Ed. 

January 18, 2022 - Indoor air quality is paramount to a pandemic response plan--learn how a multi-layered approach can help your district.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented education with challenges and opportunities. On one hand, the massive move to digital learning and one-to-one programs has accelerated districts’ plans for edtech adoption. On the other, state and district leaders must ensure safe learning environments as schools strive to remain open—and paying attention to indoor air quality is critical.

Mandatory mask mandates, social distancing, routine handwashing, hybrid learning—schools are juggling a number of safety protocols. And while these steps are important, COVID-19 is airborne, meaning air purification and indoor air quality are of the utmost importance.

Providing healthier air can significantly reduce the anxiety levels of students, faculty, and staff—and students who are less stressed are able to learn better.

A layered approach to protection is recommended and can help school leaders ensure safe learning environments, according to Brooke Pitcher, Director of Facilities at Marin Country Day School, and Kelly Hayes of Surgically Clean Air.

Air quality was always a concern at Pitcher’s school, which has a mix of buildings from mid-1950’s and new buildings. But the pandemic escalated that concern.

“It was never on the forefront as far as an urgent concern, then obviously, like everybody else, the pandemic hit and we were swamped,” he said during an eSchool News webinar. “All of a sudden that secondary air quality conversation immediately came to the forefront.

A layered approach to clean and healthy air, focusing on air purification and indoor air quality, includes:

And while HVAC improvements and attention to indoor air quality are important, school leaders also need to focus on the classroom at the “source” of potential infections and outbreaks. Portable air cleaners give schools flexibility to increase air purification whenever and wherever needed.

Each school should evaluate its specific needs based on its number of classrooms, shared areas, capacity, etc.

Watch the full eSchool News webinar for more.

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by Michael Gilraine, 10/28/2020

BROWN CENTER CHALKBOARD - The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about an increased focus on public health, particularly in school settings. From social distancing to testing regimes, education leaders are making serious changes to ensure that schools are safe for students, staff, and teachers. As the school experience continues to be reinvented, research points to an overlooked but potentially critical factor when thinking about reopening: air quality. While we have known for some time about the negative effects of air pollution on child health, recent evidence indicates that pollution also has detrimental effects on student learning. In turn, these relationships suggest the potential for some highly cost-effective interventions to raise student performance—and keep kids safer during the pandemic.

To date, most research has linked pollution to student learning using variation in outdoor air pollution. Researchers (see here and here) have documented significant declines in test scores when students take tests on days with high levels of particulate pollution. Another study compared students attending schools downwind relative to upwind of highways and found that increased air pollution from being downwind lowered test scores and raised behavioral incidents and absences. Similarly, in a recent working paper, a co-author and I use year-to-year variation in power production combined with wind direction to show that pollution from coal-fired power plants lower students’ test scores.

Several recent papers have been able to link indoor air quality to reduced cognitive performance. Research from chess tournaments found that a player’s probability of making an erroneous chess move (as determined by a chess engine) increased when particulate matter at the tournament venue was higher. An economist at the London School of Economics also linked indoor air quality to test performance. To do so, he collected air particulate readings in exam rooms at a university in London. He found that exam rooms at the university varied considerably in terms of air quality, and that students performed worse when they were assigned to exam rooms with higher levels of air pollution.

Naturally, this evidence should spur policymakers to reduce children’s exposure to airborne pollutants. In general, the news has been positive on this front, with the average exposure to airborne pollutants in the United States declining by almost a third since 2000, according to satellite- and ground-based measures. These improvements have been driven by environmental regulations such as the Clean Air Act, along with the striking decline in coal use due to cheaper and cleaner alternatives, especially natural gas.

While the improvements in ambient air quality are commendable, children are also exposed to high levels of airborne pollutants indoors. Indoor air quality is a result of complex interactions between local meteorology, surrounding structures, and building characteristics (e.g., building ventilation, location of air intakes, etc.). Given this, indoor air pollution is highly spatially and temporally variable. For example, one of the key drivers of indoor air pollution is human movements causing the resuspension of settled dust, making it so that classroom air quality is worst when students enter/exit classes for recess or lunch. Researchers in London found that air quality inside classrooms was worse than the air quality outside. Given that students spend one-half of their waking time on weekdays at school, such evidence spotlights schools as a natural location to reduce students’ exposure to air pollution.

In that vein, one way to improve air quality inside classrooms is to upgrade aging schools. Research in this area has been promising, with one study in Texas looking at mold and ventilation remediation projects and finding that these renovations substantially raised test scores by about 0.1-0.15 of a standard deviation. These projects were costly, however, with the average remediation project costing between $300,000 and $500,000. Similar beneficial effects on test scores have been found using new school construction, although these entail even higher costs.

Clean air may be a basic human right, but unfortunately it’s not a reality for many school children around the world – putting them at greater risk of exposure to airborne illnesses and pollutants. Despite mitigation efforts, COVID-19 will be with us for a long time, not to mention future viruses and other illnesses that keep children out of school, such as the common cold, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). While we can’t eliminate germs, we can curb their spread in schools by addressing air filtration and overall air quality.

Air pollution has long been a threat to human health, but the global pandemic has escalated the urgency associated with indoor air. Given that the average American student spends more than 14,000 hours in a classroom over their lifetime – more than a quarter of their life – the air inside schools matters. It’s also important to note that schools tend to be densely populated, with typically four times as many occupants than office buildings with a similar floor plan and square footage. Yet, educational infrastructure in most countries around the world has long been underfunded and over-extended.

With many schools receiving pandemic relief funding, there is an unprecedented opportunity to invest in long-lasting changes that will improve current learning environments and benefit future generations of students. School infrastructure has been low on the list of priorities in many countries for years, but the pandemic has helped to boost it higher on the global agenda, shining a light on the indoor air problem.

Governments must earmark relief funding for school infrastructure upgrades and school districts must commit to implementation, with a renewed focus on modernizing heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. It may be tempting to spend relief funds on the latest tech gadgets, but first, we need to prioritize the most basic need: upgraded physical buildings that provide healthy and safe spaces where children can learn.

The pandemic has forced school administrators around the world to experiment with a variety of measures for keeping schools safe. While not as attention grabbing as mask mandates and vaccine innovations, air quality improvements through ventilation and filtration, have emerged as an effective way to curtail the spread of airborne illness. One study, for example, conducted by the CDC and Georgia Department of Health found that COVID-19 cases were 39% lower in schools that improved air ventilation.

Given ample reported data and best practices on how to modernize schools, countries do not need to start from scratch – they can consult existing resources, such as the 2021 State of Our Schools Report and the US Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Initiative, and learn from those who are further along on their journeys.

Communication and transparency are key, and currently many parents and teachers feel uninformed. Whether a school is working to address air quality now or plans to in the future, the status of upgrades and efforts should be reported regularly to discourage parents and teachers from taking air quality monitoring into their own hands, like sneaking CO2 monitors into school buildings.

Teachers surveyed across eight countries consistently reported that their students had lost educational ground while forced to learn remotely during the pandemic, revealing that online learning is not as effective as in-person teaching. And not surprisingly, children from poorer households were disproportionately impacted and suffered from greater learning loss, exacerbating existing educational inequalities. Teachers working in high-poverty schools found virtual classes to be especially ineffective, rating it 3.5 out of 10.

Technology provided a way for students to stay engaged while the world battled the pandemic but now, two years in, it’s clear that kids are better off in the classroom. Not only is the educational cost of online learning too high but the social, emotional and mental impacts of remote learning are too devastating. As teachers work to catch kids up academically, governments and school administrators must address the air quality, which is fundamental to keeping children healthy and schools open.

In addition to slowing the spread of airborne viruses, schools need to mitigate the impacts of climate change, including upgrading aging facilities to keep occupants safe and comfortable in the face of increasing pollution and extreme temperatures. For schools struggling to meet current standards, it will only get more challenging so they must act now. Inefficient school buildings cost more in the long run, leading to high utility bills. If air systems worked better, saved resources could be reinvested in technology, books, teachers’ salaries, etc.

Upgrading to modern HVAC systems that monitor air quality, maintain comfortable temperatures and ensure proper filtration will also likely improve academic performance. An economist from the London School of Economics makes the case that air quality impacts test scores, with students performing worse when assigned to classrooms with higher levels of air pollution and better when in classrooms with air purifiers. Indoor air pollution has also been linked to an increased likelihood of increased absenteeism from school.

While we may not be able to thwart the increasingly transmissible COVID-19 variants, one thing we can control quite easily is the air, and we should do it now on a global scale. Our children’s education and health depend on it.

NPR - Not many people can say the pandemic has made their jobs easier. But in some ways, Tracy Enger can.

"You know, it is such a hallelujah moment, absolutely," says Enger, who works at the Environmental Protection Agency's Indoor Environments Division. For more than 25 years, she's been fighting to improve the air quality inside of America's schools.

But there are lots of competing demands for limited school budgets. And in the past, getting school districts to prioritize indoor air quality hasn't been easy. Often, she says, it took some kind of crisis to get schools to focus on the issue – "when they found the mold problem, when their asthma rates were kind of going through the roof."

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic — spread by virus particles that can build up in indoor air and linger, sometimes for hours. Key to clearing out those infectious particles: good ventilation and filtration. For example, one study of Georgia schools linked improved ventilation strategies, combined with HEPA filtration, to a 48% lower rate of COVID.

Suddenly — finally — lots of people have started to pay attention to indoor air quality in schools, says Anisa Heming, director of the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council.

"It matters more to people right now," says Heming. "COVID is this immediate threat that has made air quality immediately relevant."

That's why she and other indoor air-quality experts say the Biden administration's new National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan is a step in the right direction: It specifically highlights the need to help schools upgrade their ventilation systems for the long term, using funding from the American Rescue Plan Act.

Heming says in the past, it's been hard to make a health case for improving air quality in schools, because the health impacts tend to be longer term. But a whole body of research shows the health and academic benefits are substantial — and go beyond COVID. When a room is better ventilated, influenza rates, asthma attacks and absenteeism go down, reading and math test scores go up. Less carbon dioxide builds up in a room, which helps students think more clearly.

"It's well documented across all different countries and all different ages," says Joseph Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings program at Harvard University. "We see benefits in kindergarteners, we see benefits in high school, we see benefits in college students and middle schoolers — every age group."

Allen says understanding these long-term benefits of upgrading ventilation is vital, "because an investment right now is not just a short-term investment for COVID. If a school does this right, they can expect not only years, but decades of benefits to health beyond reductions in infectious disease transmission."

And experts say those investments are desperately needed, because most U.S. schools are poorly ventilated to begin with. The average American school is over 45 years old, and many have HVAC systems that are outdated or need repairs, according to a 2020 report from the Government Accountability Office. Some schools are so old, they don't even have mechanical ventilation systems.

"I don't think a lot of people recognize that the design standards [that govern ventilation rates in schools and other buildings] are bare minimums. They were never actually set for health," says Allen.

Carl Thurnau knows all too well just how bad deferred school maintenance can get. Several years ago, a classroom ceiling actually collapsed at a school in the City School District of New Rochelle, N.Y. That's when the district recruited Thurnau, an engineer, to become its director of facilities to oversee a $106 million overhaul of buildings — a process that was already funded and in motion when COVID struck. That money meant the school district could quickly pivot to implement ventilation upgrades in response to COVID.

Having funding in place "is why we were able to get ahead of this — and in my opinion, stay ahead," Thurnau says. But "there's no doubt that districts with less financial resources are struggling to find the money to solve some of these problems."

Ventilation and green building experts have been offering schools guidance on how to improve their air quality to reduce COVID risk since the early days of the pandemic, even before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged the virus could spread through the air. Broadly speaking, Allen says, the advice boils down to three major things: increasing the amount of outdoor air in a classroom; using higher-efficiency MERV filters in HVAC systems; and supplementing these measures with portable air cleaners with HEPA filters.

But two years in, it's unclear how many schools have actually made these changes. That information isn't tracked at the federal level, though some reports hint at the challenges schools have faced. What's clear, says Allen, is that while a lot of schools have taken steps to improve ventilation, many others haven't. "Some haven't done the basic measures, the stopgap measures," Allen says.

Heming says schools have been able to tap federal funds for ventilation upgrades since late December 2020, and the American Rescue Plan Act, passed in March 2021, made a lot more money — $122 billion — available to schools for this and other pandemic-related purposes.

So why have many schools been slow to act when it comes to indoor air quality? Last year, the Center for Green Schools published a survey of more than 47 school districts representing 2.5 million students in 24 states. The vast majority of them said they prefer to invest in long-term solutions rooted in revamping or replacing their HVAC systems.

But with so many old and outdated school buildings, Heming says "these strategies that schools need to use require that they do pretty major renovations."

That kind of work takes many months to plan and contract. In many cases, she says, those plans are only being firmed up now. And a recent survey found many school districts are worried that they won't be able to complete the work by a September 2024 deadline under the law, especially because of supply chain issues and labor and material shortages.

Stopgap measures like opening windows or using portable air cleaners really do work to improve indoor air quality, Heming says, but they can only take schools so far. For example, open windows aren't realistic when outdoor temperatures are freezing, she says, and in humid regions, they can pull in more humidity, promoting the growth of mold.

And while many school districts have invested in stand-alone portable air cleaners, they come with their own headaches, says Heming: The units can be disruptively noisy and they need to be stored and maintained over time.

In general, she says, the school districts that were able to move quickest to improve their air ventilation and filtration in response to the pandemic were those that already had money available to upgrade their facilities, and in many cases, they'd already assessed their buildings and knew which ones needed work.

But there are some encouraging signs that more schools may be catching up soon. An analysis released in February by FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University, found that school districts already had plans in place to spend about $4.4 billion on HVAC updates, and if trends continue, that could reach nearly $10 billion. Another FutureEd analysis found that high-poverty districts are more likely to plan to use federal funds to upgrade aging ventilation systems.

The EPA's Enger says interest in the agency's guidance on indoor air quality for school has skyrocketed over the last year. "What we are seeing is this moment turning into a movement for improving indoor air quality in schools and creating healthier learning spaces," she says.

Heming says she's also optimistic, but her enthusiasm is tempered. She notes that the $122 billion of American Rescue Plan funds designated for schools has to pay for a host of pandemic-related needs — from hiring more staff to summer school programs — not just ventilation upgrades.

Even if every last dime of the American Rescue Plan funds for schools were spent on facilities, "it's still a big gap between that and what's actually needed," Heming says. A 2021 report found that each year, districts spend $85 billion less than what's needed to get schools into good condition.

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Maria Godoy is a senior science and health editor and correspondent with NPR News. Her reporting can be heard across NPR's news shows and podcasts. She is also one of the hosts of NPR's Life Kit.

NATIONWIDE - The 2022 “State of the Air” report, released earlier this month by the American Lung Association, finds that despite progress, an unacceptable number of Americans are still living in areas with poor air quality that could impact their health. Nearly 9 million more Americans are affected by deadly particle pollution than last year’s report; and the burden of air pollution is unevenly shared as communities of color continue to be disproportionately exposed to unhealthy air.

The Lung Association’s 23rd annual air quality “report card” tracks and grades Americans’ exposure to unhealthy levels of short-term spikes in particle pollution (also known as soot), annual particle pollution, and ground-level ozone air pollution (also known as smog) over a three-year period.

“This year’s ‘State of the Air’ report shows an alarming number of people are living in areas with poor air quality that could impact their health. As a pulmonologist living in Southern California, I see first-hand the impacts of air pollution, and specifically particle pollution from wildfires, on my patients,” said Cedric "Jamie" Rutland, M.D., national volunteer medical spokesperson for the American Lung Association. “In addition, communities of color are disproportionately exposed to unhealthy air. The report found that people of color were 61% more likely than white people to live in a county with a failing grade for at least one pollutant, and 3.6 times as likely to live in a county with a failing grade for all three pollutants, which means more asthma that can be life-threatening in children and adults.”

The report continues to show long-term improvement in the nation’s air quality thanks to decades of work to reduce emissions. However, this has been partially offset by the negative impacts of hotter, drier conditions caused by climate change. Wildfires in the western U.S. were responsible for a sharp rise in particle pollution spikes in several states. Overall, the report finds that 2.1 million more Americans live in counties with unhealthy air than in last year’s report, and exposure to deadly particle pollution has worsened. And people of color are also more likely to be living with one or more chronic conditions that make them more vulnerable to the health impact of air pollution, including asthma, diabetes, and heart disease.

For the first time, the 2022 “State of the Air” report lists pregnant people as a population at high risk for health impacts from air pollution. More than 1.5 million pregnancies were recorded in 2020 in counties that received at least one F for particle pollution. Of those, 210,000 were in counties that received failing grades for all three measures. Adverse impacts from air pollution have been shown both for those who are pregnant as well as for the developing fetus. Exposure to both ozone and particle pollution during pregnancy is strongly associated with premature birth, low birth weight, and stillbirth. These risks are amplified in pregnancies where the mother is already at higher risk, such as in people of color and those with chronic conditions, especially asthma.

The addition of 2020 data to the 2022 “State of the Air” report gives a first look at air quality trends during the COVID-19 pandemic. Regardless of the shutdowns in early 2020, there was no obvious improvement. It found more days with “very unhealthy” and “hazardous” air quality than ever before in the two-decade history of this report.

The American Lung Association calls on the Biden administration to strengthen the national limits on short-term and year-round particulate matter air pollution. Stronger standards will educate the public about air pollution levels that threaten their health and drive the cleanup of polluting sources in communities across the country. The full report covers 2018-2020 and is available at Lung.org/SOTA.

The American Lung Association is the leading organization working to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease through education, advocacy and research. The work of the Ameri-can Lung Association is focused on four strategic imperatives: to defeat lung cancer; to champion clean air for all; to improve the quality of life for those with lung disease and their families; and to create a tobacco-free future. For more information about the American Lung Association, a holder of the coveted 4-star rating from Charity Navigator and a Gold-Level GuideStar Member, or to support the work it does, call 1-800-LUNGUSA (1-800-586-4872) or visit Lung.org.

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