The results are in: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency research testing of do-it-yourself ‘Corsi-Rosenthal Box’ indoor air filters shows they are 99% effective in removing airborne virus. The ‘Owl Force One’ device tested by the EPA was built by UConn Indoor Air Quality Initiative researchers with Middletown, Connecticut public school children.
Comments closedOn September 27, BC provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, and health minister, Adrian Dix, announced mandatory masking would be re-established in healthcare environments as COVID-19 cases are rising at a rapid rate. Starting October 3, masks became mandatory once again in healthcare settings.
Comments closedMore than two weeks into the school year, New Brunswick has released the school air quality test results from 2022-23.
Twenty-nine of the 35 public schools tested last winter had peak carbon dioxide levels above the Department of Education’s threshold of 1,500 parts per million (ppm), shown in results posted online and included at the end of this story.
A group of parents with kids in Ontario classrooms is calling on the province to take further action to improve air ventilation, filtration, and purification in its schools.
Comments closedAbsence rates at Calgary public schools have more than doubled after the first week of school, as concerns loom over respiratory illnesses this fall and hospitals deal with an E. coli outbreak.
Comments closedSeveral grassroots groups of parents, health-care workers and teachers have sprung up across Canada to lobby for safer schools, including improved air quality.
Comments closedCOVID-19 is still here, and classrooms still represent a place where infection can spread, but there are other ways to learn and engage with students.
Comments closedNew York State is sending masks and COVID-19 rapid tests to school districts that request them for the start of the 2023-24 school year.
Comments closedAs the school year begins, it is past time to talk about the threat that SARS-CoV-2, the highly transmissible airborne virus that causes COVID-19, poses to the health of students.
Not only can the disease cause acute illness in youth, it can also lead to debilitating lingering symptoms, known as long COVID.
Comments closed“Children are not going to wear masks unless there’s a mask mandate, because we saw how quickly kids stopped wearing masks when they didn’t have to. The peer pressure that affects children in school, it’s really extraordinary. We’re still going to need to make it a rule for children and young adults to wear masks in school.”
Comments closedDozens of studies have shown that not only do N95 masks work on an individual level, but they lower transmission when people actually follow guidelines. Even the strongest critics of mask policies are forced to admit that masks themselves are effective.
Comments closedProtect Our Province is asking for HEPA filters, mask mandates, and fast-tracked COVID vaccinations.
Comments closedComments closedCurrently in B.C., we have no mask protections in schools, no proof of indoor air quality in schools including monitoring of carbon dioxide levels during full class occupancy, no [high-efficiency particulate air] filtration units available in most classrooms, almost non-existent [nucleic acid] testing, and only the occasional provincial public health report (and those reports we do see are of limited value).
Health-care workers are warning a lack of masking could lead to a new COVID wave come fall.
Comments closedMore than three years after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools, one in 20 K-12 educators believe they have long COVID. Another 14 percent think or know they previously had it but eventually recovered.
Comments closedAs children are on the list of those most affected by wildfire smoke, some parents are concerned about sending their kids to school due to poor air quality.
During Tuesday night’s Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) budget meeting, Ecology Ottawa Board Chair Katie Gibbs requested that funds go to ensure better ventilation in schools.
Comments closedAccording to a recent study, over 70% of nearly 850,000 US household COVID-19 transmissions originated with a child. The researchers concluded that children had an important role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2, and that in-person school also resulted in substantial spread.
Comments closedComments closedAre we OK with children being hospitalized for infectious diseases at far higher rates, as they have recently been? Are we fine with COVID being the No. 1 cause of infectious disease-driven death in children? Also, what if there is a number of reinfections at which average outcomes really start to worsen?
