Greetings, public health PHANs! We hope you're having a healthy and safe January so far. This is our monthly newsletter for January 2026, with stories from the COVID community, highlights of work from artists and creators, upcoming events from PHAN and other organizations, and articles about COVID, other airborne pathogens, and clean air. We're developing some great software tools, hosting twice-a-month public Zoom meetings, producing a podcast, and making connections with people around the world. 

 

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We had a terrific meeting on Tuesday where we presented the work we've done over the past year, with building CARE and SAFER and developing our communications channels and building relationships with other individuals and organizations in the clean-air-aware community. We have some big ideas in mind for 2026, including a virtual memorial for victims of Long COVID, virtual art museums, online concerts, more scientific and community meetings, developing a PPE distribution system, and becoming a U.S. distributor for Pluslife testing devices. You're invited to take a survey about potential 2026 projects to help guide our thinking for our priorities. We very much appreciate your feedback and suggestions.

 

The recording for the meeting is available from Zoom. The passcode is: @5u*74ZE

 

One of the software tools we've been working on in the past year that we presented on Tuesday is CARE, our innovative AI/LLM COVID research tool. It is currently in open beta and can be reached at https://care.phan.global. CARE is tightly constrained to a set of nearly a hundred thousand evidence-based research papers, and, as an option, you can also have it search through curated sets of posts from Twitter, Bluesky, and Reddit. It sifts through all the research and posts and clinical trials news to summarize the answer to your question in plain language, along with links to all the sources. CARE doesn't take your data, store it, or use it to train the system. CARE will never make stuff up, and if it doesn't know the answer, it will tell you so. 

 

We invite you to use CARE to ask it questions ranging from basic, like “what is COVID”, to as technical as you can think of, or to create emails for friends, family, healthcare providers, and school employees. We believe CARE can greatly help with making verified information more accessible. If you have any feedback for us about CARE, email us at info@phan.global.

 

Thank you so much for being engaged in our work. Your input matters and  will help shape the work we're doing this year so we can be of better service to the community. We're looking forward to doing some great work this year and we're so happy to have you along for the journey.

In case you missed it, this week Mask Together America published a fantastic video of Tina Sugandh and her three kids, the Mighty Motivators (also the wife and kids of our CEO), talking about how they've all attained second-degree black belts in taekwondo, all done while masking. In the video they talk about how COVID can be asymptomatic and how Long COVID can make it difficult or impossible for people to do what they really love. They are so fierce and so well-informed! It's a genuinely inspirational video that seems to have touched a lot of people. You can watch the video on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter, and Facebook.

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Meet COVID-aware and clean-air-aware artist Chris Covell (@clcisme on Instagram), who has a lot of fun making cheeky COVID-aware designs for shirts, hats, and totes. You can check out his shop at sassyhomo.com and his other work at https://beacons.page/sassyhomo.

 

New blog post from keith MUISE on moving across canada with his family because of covid

COVID activist/musician/comedian/all-around-good-guy Keith Muise had to make a long-distance trip across Canada in 2020 soon after the pandemic started. His family decided to move from Alberta to Newfoundland to be near his family while they were home-schooling their son to keep him safe from COVID. He recounts the journey that had some joy but some sadness too. You can read part 1 of his story on our blog. We're delighted to be working with Keith to bring you his story and some fun video content coming your way in the future.

Kyle Stevens' Clean Air Events is hosting a special event, A Celebration of Black Artistry Dance Party, in Seattle, WA, on Feb 15, 2pm - 5pm. All Clean Air Events are mask-required, and they use air purifiers and far-UVC devices. These mitigations will let attendee dance in a safe environment and meet plenty of other clean-air-aware folks. Kyle is a friend of PHAN and we love seeing him put on these events to show us all how gatherings can be fun AND safe. Tickets to the event start at $10. 

ONGOING WEEKLY 

COVID COMMUNITY MEETINGS

Every Saturday evening: Pandemic Pals meetings on Zoom. Every Saturday at 5 pm PT/8 pm ET, the Pandemic Collaborative hosts a Zoom call with several breakout rooms based on age groups, life situations, and special interests. Check their Google Document the day of the call for that week's Zoom link.

 

Every Sunday: The COVID-Safe Art Collective holds an online gathering every Sunday at 4:30pm until 6pm CT for COVID-safe adults to create art or just chat and be with other aware folks. Zoom link.

 

Every Monday & Sunday: Rising Hope meetings on Zoom. Rising Hope is a community of COVID-conscious folks that meet Monday evenings, plus Sunday mornings for church services. Contact them via Reddit.

 

Daily: The World Health Network hosts COVID-aware community meetings every day. Community care starts with conversation! Their Welcome page explains how to connect with their meeting groups.

All PHAN and clean-air community events are listed on our website Events page.

 

January 31-February 4, 2026: ASHRAE Winter Conference 2026 Las Vegas. This conference invites you to immerse yourself in a world of HVAC&R with 100+ technical sessions at the ASHRAE Winter Conference 2026 Las Vegas, and 1700+ exhibitors at the AHR Expo. Registration for the ASHRAE Winter Conference 2026 Las Vegas includes registration for the AHR Expo, also in Las Vegas, February 2-4, 2026.

 

February 5, 2026: Join PHAN and Air Support Project on Thursday, Feb 5, 2026 at noon ET as we have a focused discussion with Chimere Sweeney on how Long COVID is affecting Black people, and how we can elevate Black voices in the COVID-aware community and collaborate beyond Black History Month. Register in advance.

 

February 14, 2026: Goin' Viral: Valentine's Day Edition. A virtual game show/comedy showcase with Lauren Flans and Ron Placcone, inspired by stuff spreading around the world. The event takes place at 6pm ET / 5pm CT / 4pm MT / 3pm PT. RSVP to https://tinyurl.com/rsvpgoinviral, and a Zoom link will be sent the day of the event.

 

February 22, 2026: Join PHAN and Air Support Project on Sunday, February 22nd, 2026 at noon ET for a discussion with special guest speaker Ruth Brooker of Clean Air For Kids UK about how COVID and IAQ can affect or cause childhood cancer. Register in advance. Note that this meeting was originally scheduled for February 19th and had to be rescheduled due to other scheduling conflicts.

 

March 11, 2026: Take Action Against Long COVID Demonstration in Olympia, WA. Die-in demonstration at the North Steps of the Washington State Capital in Olympia, WA, 11am-1pm. 

 

March 15, 2026: International Long COVID Awareness Day. Events will be happening that day all around the world.

January 26, 2026: US Weekly COVID update from the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC). For additional data, visit the PMC Data website, and follow PMC Data author Mike Hoerger on Twitter.

 

🔹New daily infections in the past week, based on wastewater-derived models: 732,000 (down from 941,000 last week)

🔹Proportion actively infectious: 1 in 67 (1.5%) (down from 1 in 52 people (1.5%) last week)

🔹Infections in the past week: 5,220,000 (down from 6,020,000  last week)

🔹Infections in 2026: 24,000,000 (up from 18,000,000 last week)

🔹Cumulative infections per person in the U.S.: 5.04  (up from 5.01 last week)

🔹Long COVID cases resulting from new daily infections: 37,000 to 146,000 (down from 47,000 to 188,000 last week)

🔹Long COVID cases resulting from new weekly infections: 261,000 to 1,040,000 (down from 301,000 to 1,200,000 last week)
 

December 26, 2025: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis of 97 million individuals shows that SARS-CoV-2 infection increases the risk of autoimmune diseases, particularly those affecting vascular and connective tissue. 

 

January 12, 2026: Cat disease challenges what scientists thought about coronaviruses. A new study finds viruses may hide and persist in immune cells.

 

January 21, 2026: From CIDRAP: A large Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study suggests that US school-aged children diagnosed as having long COVID are at 2.5 times the risk of related chronic absenteeism compared with those without the condition. The study, published last week in Emerging Infectious Diseases, also found double the prevalence of memory impairment, problems concentrating, and learning difficulties in this group.

 

January 22, 2026: The U.S. has officially left the World Health Organization. “The HHS focused much of its critique on the WHO's actions during the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming that it delayed its response in declaring COVID-19 to be a global health emergency, and saying the organization unfairly criticized Trump for actions such as shutting down travel from certain foreign countries during the early days of the pandemic.”

 

January 26, 2026: UK loses its measles elimination status. Decision made after outbreaks in 2024, when there were nearly 3,000 cases in England and Wales.

 

and now for your moment of zen

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If you want to support our work, please donate! Your donations will go towards the projects we're developing and to pay a small team of staffers making it all happen.

 

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