Greetings, public health PHANs! We hope you're having a healthy and safe March so far. This is our weekly newsletter for March 5th, 2026, with some updates on our work, highlights of Long COVID Awareness Month events in March, plus news and articles about COVID, other airborne pathogens, and clean air. We're developing some great software tools, hosting twice monthly public Zoom meetings, producing a podcast, and making connections with people around the world. 

 

You can manage your subscriptions from the “manage preferences” link at the bottom of this email. You can support us by liking, sharing, and commenting on our social media posts on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. 

A call for proposals 

to Reduce Airborne pathogens

We're excited to announce a call for proposals for projects that will measurably reduce airborne pathogens. We're inviting proposals for high impact projects designed to produce measurable and verifiable reductions in indoor airborne pathogen transmission. The deadline for submissions is March 31st, 2026. 

 

We're doing this during Long COVID Awareness Month because we know that the way to avoid getting Long COVID is to not get COVID. For more information, read our blog post, and read a full description on our Request for Proposals page. Questions about the proposals process? Email us at proposals@phan.global.

 

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As part of Long COVID Awareness Month, yesterday we had a really terrific discussion on living with Long COVID with COVID Long-haulers Becky Ancira Robertson and Amanda Finley. Amanda started and moderates the COVID-19 Long Haulers Discussion Group on Facebook, with over 17,000 members, and Becky came across the group and became a co-moderator for it. The group now has members from over 100 countries and hosts regular town halls on a variety of subjects related to COVID and disability. Becky is also a founding member of Mask Together America and runs a Twitter Space about Long COVID four nights a week. Both Amanda and Becky are long haulers, i.e. they became infected with COVID in 2020 and have had to live with all the issues it causes for nearly six years. We were so lucky to speak with them how Long COVID has affected them and hope you'll watch or listen to it on YouTube.

 

On March 15th, International Long COVID Awareness Day, Becky Ancira Robertson will host a 24-hour Twitter Space event to help drive awareness of the disease. She'll have several guest speakers, including Jonathan Howard, Liesl McConchie, AJ Leonardi, Morgan Fairchild, and many others. We're really looking forward to it.

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On Thursday, March 19, we'll host a discussion on Long COVID and Young Adults, with guest speakers Ariana Zwern and Marisa Swanson, both of whom were infected by COVID in their early 20s and are now disabled by it, before their adult lives have really even begun. They'll talk about how Long COVID has affected them, what they've done about it, and what keeps them going. The event takes place at 12 noon ET / 5pm GMT. Registration is required and you'll need a Zoom account in order to register.

PHAN's first annual report is now available

We're proud to announce that our first annual report is now available on our website. The story of PHAN so far has been of assembling the team and the community to solve major challenges in public health, building online tools to educate and empower people who have the interest, time and resources to proactively protect their own health from the spread of airborne disease; and taking care of the community by distributing PPE and other supplies. Moreover, all of this has been accomplished with financial efficiency, with over 75% of funds going directly to active programs, and 20% spent on fundraising, which is crucial for a young and small nonprofit.

 

The vision for PHAN is that we will help build infrastructure that aids in the prevention of transmission of airborne disease automatically, in the background, not just for those with the interest, time, and resources to proactively focus on clean air. Just as traffic lights help prevent vehicular accidents for all road users, and water purification plants provide clean drinking water for everyone, we aim to promote technical development of unobtrusive infrastructure that radically reduces the spread of airborne disease. In early 2026 we are reviewing project proposals to determine which specific interventions are likely to have the most impact.

 

We invite PHAN supporters to read the entire report and share it with other potential supporters and donors.

Makers' Spotlight: Chris Covell

Chris Covell is a creator and Long COVID survivor who makes wonderfully cheeky and bold art related to Long COVID. We are delighted that he's donating a portion of his profits during March to PHAN! You can check out his Instagram account for his store and purchase any of his Long COVID and other designs on his website. 

After the successful campaign by Clean Air LA and other organizations to get the city of Los Angeles to recognize March 15 as International Long COVID Awareness Day, a new petition campaign is underway to get the city of New York to follow suit. PHAN is proud to be a designated co-sponsor of this campaign. If you're a New York resident, you can sign the petition online.

Next week, Long COVID Awareness is sponsoring two Die-In Demonstrations coast to coast in their campaign to take action against Long COVID. The first demonstration will take place on Monday, March 9 at the Maryland State Capital in Annapolis, MD, at 11am, and the second will take place on Wednesday, March 11 at the Washington State Capital, north steps, in Olympia, WA, at 11am. Long COVID Awareness is working to get people active in fighting for Long COVID tests, treatments, and cures. Find out more at their website. 

Then on March 15, Clean Air LA is sponsoring a die-in demonstration at Gloria Molina Grand Park, the lowermost level in front of Los Angeles City Hall. The event will take place from 4:00PM to 7:30PM. The first ever lighting of City Hall for Long COVID Awareness Day occurs at 7:00PM. They're looking for volunteers to take videos, distribute water, act as event and safety liaisons, and anything else you'd like to help with. Follow Clean Air LA on Instagram for more updates and DM them to volunteer.

Ongoing 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 Saturday: The Little Zoom Writers Room hosts a weekly co-writing space open to all COVID realists. Check their welcome page for more info.

 

Every first Tuesday and third Saturday of the month: COVID Creative Coalition Sessions. Tuesdays meetings are at 6PM ET, and Saturday meetings are at 11AM ET. These will be virtual gatherings where we co-work, plan projects, center disability justice, and hold optional check-ins. Full info at Celebrate845.com/COVIDCreativeCoalition. 

 

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 events are listed on our Events page and can be added automatically to your calendar app of choice.

 

March 9 2026: Take Action Against Long COVID Demonstration in Annapolis, MD. Die-in demonstration at the Maryland state capital in Annapolis, 11am-1pm. See details above.

 

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. See details above.

 

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

 

March 19, 2026: PHAN and Air Support Project will host a discussion on Long COVID in young adults. More details in our item above. Register in advance.

 

March 31, 2026: NURA Community will host a discussion with Julie Lam, founder and director of Mask Together America. RSVP.

Book by Sara Robitaille, illustrated by Sandra Thomas, as posted in The Sick Times

March 2, 2026: US Weekly COVID update from the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC). On the back end of the 12 th wave, transmission continues to subside, but unevenly, with 16 states still High/Very High (CDC levels). Note the many states with limited data.For additional data, visit the PMC Data website, and follow PMC Data author Mike Hoerger on Bluesky.

 

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 27, 2026: Patients who have had COVID are found to have increased risks of chronic rhinosinusitis, asthma, and allergic rhinitis.

 

February 16, 2026: A large population-based study from the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control suggests that COVID-19 infection is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in unvaccinated and severely ill patients, with elevated risk persisting for up to 3 years after infection.

 

February 24, 2026: A terrific research paper on the need for COVID-19 mitigations for healthcare providers for adults with cancer, from Mike Hoerger and other researchers: Feasibility and Acceptability of a Multilayered COVID-19 Mitigation Intervention in Adults with Cancer.

 

February 25, 2026: How COVID Quietly Re-Wires the Brain. This is an excerpt in Bloomberg from a new book “After Covid: The Health Impacts That Will Last Generations”. It's an unfortunately titled book implying that we are somehow “post COVID”, but the excerpt is devastating. We hope that it gets seen and noticed by people who may not have been paying much attention to Long COVID. 

 

February 25, 2026: A long COVID sufferer was awarded nearly $1 million after her employer refused to let her work from home after she became affected by Long COVID. A jury in Nassau County awarded $954,000 to a longtime employee of Stony Brook University Hospital Blood Bank, after the hospital refused to accommodate the employee's Long COVID by letting her work remotely, ultimately forcing her out of a job she’d held for more than a decade. 

 

March 2, 2026: Human metapneumovirus (HPMV) is surging in parts of northern California. According to recent WastewaterSCAN data, concentrations of human metapneumovirus, or HMPV, are high in San Francisco, Marin, Vallejo, Napa, Novato, Santa Rosa, Sacramento and Davis. The respiratory illness, which typically lasts from winter through spring, causes familiar symptoms like cough, fever and congestion, and spreads through contaminated surfaces, the air and person-to-person contact.

 

March 4, 2026: The Sick Times reports on two new books by Sara Robitaille that help children understand how Long COVID affects their family members: Long COVID Transformed My Mommy, and Long COVID Transformed My Sister into a Turtle.

 

March 4, 2026: A new research paper attempts to quantify the spatiotemporal dynamics of the first two epidemic waves of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the United States. Public health economist Troy Tassier wrote a terrific blog post about one of the events described in the paper, a motorcycle rally in Sturgis, SD in August 2020, that demonstrably spread COVID throughout the US. 

 

March 5, 2026: Florida measles cases continue to rise. The Florida Department of Health has reported 124 cases since the start of the year, the third-highest number of cases in the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, South Carolina has 653 and Utah has 149. Florida’s vaccination rate for the measles remains below the recommended threshold of 95%.

Measles is a highly contagious airborne disease that spreads through coughing and breathing. The virus can hang in the air for about two hours after an infected person has been in a room. According to the CDC, the ideal vaccination rate for a population to reach herd immunity from measles is 95%. However, Florida’s vaccination rate has fallen over the years to 88% of kindergarteners who received the MMR vaccine. The CDC says that the falling vaccine rate is to blame for the spread of measles across the country. 

on the lighter side…

Credit: Amanda Finley

support our work!

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.

 

Another way you can support us is by sharing our social media posts on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Follow us and like and share our posts to increase our visibility. We really appreciate everyone who follows us and shares our posts!

 

If you're interested in volunteering, we'd love to have you! We're looking for folks interested in:

If you match any of those needs, or you have other skills or experience that you think might help our work, we'll find a way for you to help! Fill out our contact form on our website and one of us will get back to you as soon as we can.