Behind the 3M Aura N95 is Michelle B. @comety_hour in cap and gown at her graduation, sitting next to her Squirrel friend (@utdsquirrels_)  Photo credit: Mask Together America.

Weekly Newsletter, May 22, 2026

Greetings, public health PHANs! We hope you're having a healthy and safe May so far. This week we have news of our next Zoom discussion on May 24 about clean air in healthcare settings, another Zoom discussion on May 28 about mask blocs, publication of our most recent podcast episode with Jonathan Howard, World Mask Week which runs from May 25 to May 31, plus events related to COVID and clean air, and news about COVID, other airborne pathogens, and clean air. 

 

You can manage your subscriptions from the “manage preferences” link at the bottom of this email. And you can support us by liking, sharing, and commenting on our social media posts on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. It really helps our visibility when you engage with our posts and follow our accounts.

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Join our next Zoom discussion on Sunday, May 24, at 5pm ET when we'll talk about clean indoor air in healthcare settings: how to stay safe from airborne pathogens in healthcare settings, how to deal with unaware or hostile healthcare personnel, how patients can advocate for themselves in healthcare settings, and what some doctors' offices and hospitals are doing to ensure clean air for patients. Our guest speakers will be Maria Walls, a nurse practitioner in St Louis who sees Long COVID patients, and Donna Zelazny, a nurse with Long COVID. Register in advance. You'll need a free Zoom account in order to register. The meeting will be recorded and published to our YouTube channel shortly afterwards. Subscribe to the channel to get notified of new videos.

 

If you didn't get to attend the Zoom discussion on Clean Air and Traveling on May 5, the recording is available on our YouTube channel. We heard some terrific stories and advice from our guests Julie Lam of Mask Together America, mask advocate Daniell Kinder, and COVID-awareness educator Keith Muise.

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As part of World Mask Week (May 25-31), we'll co-host a special Zoom discussion along with advocates from Air Support Project on May 28 when we'll talk about mask blocs: what they are, how they work, how you can find one near you, and for those with sufficient time and energy, how you can start your own mask bloc. Register in advance, and as always, you'll need a free Zoom account in order to register.

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Our second episode of “Breathe This” is now available on YouTube and Spotify, with our guest Dr. Jonathan Howard, physician and author of We Want Them Infected and Everyone Else is Lying to You. We talked about his experience at Bellevue Hospital in New York City when COVID first hit the U.S., and about his documentation of the disinformation about public health that has run rampant. Dr. Howard is an Associate Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at NYU Langone Health and the Chief of Neurology at Bellevue Hospital. He is the author of Cognitive Errors and Diagnostic Mistakes: A Case-Based Guide to Critical Thinking in Medicine, as well as several textbooks in neurology. He writes on social media (on Twitter and Bluesky) about COVID, vaccines, and the disinformation about public health that is being spread by many so-called experts.

 

Our first episode featured Mask Together America founder Julie Lam; we discussed her experience with COVID and long COVID, how she founded and developed Mask Together America, and what the future of public health messaging looks like. We'll have another episode in a few weeks, so please subscribe to stay informed of new videos and also to help boost our visibility. Thanks for watching and listening!

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World Mask Week, May 25-31, 2026, is a global event for talking about masking, sharing pictures about masking, and helping those who may have stopped masking come back to it without shame or judgement. Organizations around the world will share their videos and pictures on social media. We'd like to invite you to share your photos and videos of you or your friends masking and tag us on any of the major social media platforms with #WorldMaskWeek and #PassTheMask.

Ongoing Meetings

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.

 

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.

 

Every Tuesday & Sunday: WHN hosts weekly Zoom “Kids' Connect Zone” meetings on Tuesdays and Sundays for kids, teens, and families who want to connect through COVID-conscious activities, games, and discussions. Find out more at the WHN website.
 

Join Celebrate845 on Zoom for COVID Creative Coalition community meetings on Saturdays in May at 11AM ET. No artistic experience required. Great for visual artists, writers, graphic designers, or folks interested in Street Team efforts. “Non-Hudson Valley folks are welcomed to attend, connect & get inspired, but we'll be centering building our efforts in the HV. We are down to host breakout rooms by locale!” More info at Celebrate845.com/COVIDCreativeCoalition. 

 

The folks at The Little Zoom Writers Room host a weekly co-writing space open to all COVID realists. Check their welcome page for more info or their account on Instagram.

 

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.

 

The COVID-Safe Art Collective holds an online gathering every Sunday at 2:30pm PT / 4:30pm CT / 5:30pm ET until 4pm PT / 6pm CT / 8pm ET for COVID-safe adults to create art or just chat and be with other aware folks. Check their Instagram bio for the current Zoom link.

 

 

Ongoing weekly online open-mic events with Nina Wildflower: Ben Collins, who performs as Nina Wildflower, hosts a weekly online open mic for COVID-informed performers. Each show has a designated theme but all themes are optional, as they are just a way to keep things interesting for regular performers. If you play one song that is on-theme, then you are on-theme! He's hosting these performances via the Facebook group "Still Coviding - Virtual Meetups" (private group, apply for membership). Sign up for weekly emails at ninawildflower@yahoo.com.

 

Every month: SF Neo-Futurists hosts Infinite Wrench mask-required performances on the first Saturday of each month. Infinite Wrench is a set of 30 plays in 60 minutes, new plays every week. While audience members will be required to stay masked throughout the show, performers may invite select audience members to unmask for plays that involve audience participation. All performers test weekly for COVID-19 to keep themselves and the audiences safer. Extra masks will be available for those who need them. Upcoming masked shows: June 6, August 1, Sept 5, Oct 3, Nov 7.

 

May 25, 2026: World Mask Week dance marathon on Twitch. 12-hours of COVID-informed DJ sets! 11:00 AM - 11:00 PM EST on Twitch. Follow @MaskWeekMarathon on Instagram and the World Mask Week website for updates. If you'd like to support or co-sponsor this event, please contact organizers.

 

June 7, 2026: PortaCount Community Mask Fit Testing, San Francisco. Sun., June 7, 12-3 p.m.: Free PortaCount fit testing, hosted by the Bay Area chapter of the International Order of Community Fit Testers. Sign up for a slot and find your most protective mask! Golden Gate Park. RSVP required for fit testing (access code is 415). 

 

June 25, 2026: phytocene, a clean-air-aware singer, songwriter, and producer living in Paris will host a mask-requested album release party in Paris for her new album.

 

 

 

May 24, 2026: PHAN and Air Support Project will co-host an online discussion about clean air in healthcare settings. Register in advance.

 

May 25-31, 2026: World Mask Week, during which everyone is encouraged to commit to mask in public for just one week. See the item above.

 

May 26, 2026: The Toronto Home Energy Network and Clean Indoor Air Toronto will host a webinar, "Healthy Air at Home: What You Can Monitor, Filter, and Fix", presented by Clean Indoor Air Toronto's founder, Louise Hidinger, PhD.

 

May 28, 2026: PHAN and Air Support Project will co-host an online discussion about mask blocs. See the item above. Register in advance.

 

June 2, 2026: Minnesota Dept. of Health will host a webinar: “Statewide Conversation on Post-Viral Chronic Illness: A Day of Learning, Connection, and Action”. It takes place on June 2, 2026, 9AM - 2PM CT on Zoom. Though the event is MN‑focused, it is open to all.
 

June 9, 2026: The Air We Share: Shaping healthier indoor air quality in Europe and beyond. The IDEAL Cluster Summit in Brussels is bringing together seven Horizon Europe research and innovation projects, and it will convene policymakers, researchers, industry leaders and public authorities.

May 18, 2026:  The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative reports that estimated SARS-CoV-2 levels are still at their lowest since July 13, 2021. "All states and territories are ‘very low,’ with the exceptions of Alaska (low), West Virginia (low), and Guam (moderate). Note that Biobot data have run a bit ‘cooler’ than the CDC values since last fall and are actually showing their lowest levels since the first day of the pandemic on March 11, 2020. Note that state-level midpoints can obscure within-state variation. There are isolated hot spots

throughout the U.S."

 

“As we warned a few weeks ago, the CDC has updated their website in ways that reduce data transparency and access. As anticipated, this week, they appear to have stopped updating the main data file we use, which includes all state and national longitudinal data – cleaned and in the CDC format (categories, WVAL level) – from inception to present. Hopefully the file will return, as it streamlines our work considerably.”

 

May 17, 2026: From LAist.com: The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has confirmed its fifth measles case of the year. The person flew into LAX on Thursday, May 14.  The resident was traveling internationally and arrived at Tom Bradley International Terminal (Terminal B) at LAX on May 14 via Alaska Airlines Flight 1354, departing from Guatemala City. Anyone in the terminal between 6 am and 8 am local time that morning may have been exposed.

 

May 19, 2026: From biospace.com: FDA’s own report shows no child deaths definitively caused by COVID vaccination. The FDA’s report, dated Dec. 5, flagged 96 “unique” pediatric deaths in the U.S. as of Aug. 14, 2025, as reported to the agency’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Of these, “no cases were classified as certain in relation to COVID-19 vaccination,” the report reads. 

May 19, 2026: From CNN: Many of the countries with possible hantavirus victims are handling containment in different ways. 

 

May 20, 2026: From The Jerusalem Post: Scientists developing a potential vaccine for hantavirus halted key research efforts after running out of funding during trials in 2016, despite promising early results and amid renewed global concern following a deadly outbreak linked to a cruise ship in South America, according to a recent Bloomberg report.

 

May 21, 2026: From The Straits Times: COVID-19 cases in Singapore rise by over 50% in one week. 

 

May 21, 2026: From CIDRAP: Four chicken facilities in Minnesota and Indiana experienced avian flu outbreaks in the past week. For the first time, avian flu has also been detected in a polar bear in the far north of Norway. 

on the lighter side…

Credit: The Vertlartnic

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