You can manage your subscriptions from the “manage preferences” link at the bottom of this email.

“We’re in a new Long COVID wave, let’s #MaskUp! You’re not addressing this crisis if you let COVID rip.” — Candace Taylor, who'll be speaking at the Mask Together America forum on October 9, and Dr. Marj. Photo courtesy Mask Together America.

Weekly & Monthly Newsletter, October 2, 2026

Greetings, public health PHANs! We hope you had a healthy and safe  September. This is a combined weekly and monthly newsletter just for this month. 

 

Happy National Hispanic Heritage Month! This awareness month started on September 15 and runs through to October 15. We recognize that COVID and chronic illness have hit the U.S. Hispanic community especially hard, and we're working to support Hispanic community groups across the U.S.

 

If you're new to PHAN, our mission is to reduce indoor airborne pathogens and to establish the right to clean indoor air as a human right, by:

 

In this issue:

If you have news or events that would be pertinent to our newsletter, or feedback on the newsletter or PHAN's work, email us at info@phan.global. We would love to hear your thoughts!

Next Zoom event → Thursday, October 8th. Clean Air Inside the Actors Studio

‪

Join us and Air Support Project on October 8th at 1pm ET for a discussion on clean air in the acting profession, with our guests, actors Terri Lynne Hudson and Cathryn Hartt. We'll talk about how COVID has impacted actors and crew in the movie, TV, and theater industries; what kinds of mitigation or lack of mitigations our guests have experienced; and what the future of being clean-air-aware looks like for everyone in the acting community and their audiences. We love both of these guests and are thrilled to host them. Register in advance. 

‪

The Safer Air Project will host the Safer Shared Air: Indoor Air, Health & Productivity Conference, to be held in Canberra, Australia, in-person and online on October 28 / October 27 (Americas). Online attendance for community members is being offered for free. PHAN is a gold sponsor for this conference and we encourage everyone interested in clean air to attend in person or online. We're hopeful that the work being done by Safer Air Project in Australia can be replicated and adapted for other countries.

 

The full-day conference will include over a dozen public health and policy experts, as well as representatives from the Australian government, who will speak on indoor air quality as a silent driver of chronic disease; the economic opportunities that exist; and how we can translate the evidence into world-leading, national reform. Attend in-person or online. In-person registration closes October 20, 2026. 

‪

Join us and our friends at Air Support Project, Sarah Masih and Melissa Smallwood, on November 12 at noon ET as we delve into the topic of indoor air quality (IAQ) and preventing illness with kids in schools. We'll talk about the range of different polices and standards in different districts in the U.S. and Canada, how air quality is currently being measured, what standards for IAQ or monitoring exist, and what parents can do to improve the air in their children's or their communities' schools. Our guests will include Tony Colaneri with Illinois Stakeholders for Air Quality in Schools (ISAQS), and Mary Jo Nabuurs, an advocate for clean air in schools in Ontario, Canada. Register in advance. 

A Windy City Toolbank volunteer and Air Support Project president Sarah Masih show off the recent arrival of Smart Air air purifiers that will be lent out to Chicago-area groups

‪

The CBS affiliate in Chicago published a great article about the Chicago Clean Air Resilience Network (Chi-CARN) after visiting the Windy City Toolbank warehouse where Chi-CARN is operating out of. CBS Chicago interviewed several people involved in the new project, including PHAN CEO Tarz Ludwigsen; Windy City ToolBank executive director Jess Pohto; Air Support Project president Sarah Masih; and Air Support Project vice-president Melissa Smallwood.
 

Chi-CARN is an unusual collaboration of four organizations: PHAN, Air Support Project, Windy City Toolbank, and SOS. All four organizations bring specific experience and skills that make the project possible. PHAN is playing a key part in this project by working with businesses and organizations that have masks and air purifiers they can donate, and by providing a custom-built supply-chain application called SUPPLY. This software tool will let business and organizations post clean-air supplies that can be donated and let Chicago-area mission-driven organizations claim those supplies. Chi-CARN has already received a shipment of several dozen Smart Air air purifiers that they can now loan to mission-driven organizations in the Chicago area to make their indoor spaces and events safer for everyone.

Mask Together America founder Julie Lam at the #ClimateWeek "Healthy Air in NYC Schools" event, learning about the projected impacts of implementing ASHRAE Standard 241, with ventilation, filtration, and real-time AQ reporting. Pictured here: Dr. Bronwyn King, H Newlevant, Venessa Sica Kasabach, and Julie Lam.  Photo courtesy Mask Together America.

‪

The United Nations General Assembly hosted a high-level side event on September 24 on "Healthy Indoor Air for Schools: Every Breath Shapes Learning." Schools are a critical space for addressing airborne pathogens, as there are few other environments where so many people across a wide range of ages sit communally in enclosed spaces for extended periods of time, possibly with no filtration or ventilation. Poor indoor air harms children and their educational development, as well as harming educators and staff.

 

This talk was opened by Dr. Bronwyn King and Dr. Georgia Lagoudas, co-founders of Air Club. Several public health advocates were there and reported back on social media, including Julie Lam (above), founder of Mask Together America; and Lucky Tran, MD, who posted a 30-second clip of Dr. Bronwyn King. The full event recording is available via UN Web TV. 

Long COVID: Voices of Resilience - Online, October 9

PHAN is co-sponsoring an important forum produced by Mask Together America in October: “Long COVID: Voices of Resilience”, a forum of Black authors who've written about their experience with Long COVID. The event takes place on October 9, 2026, at 5pm ET. Register in advance.

 

The event will be hosted by Sarah Cahill and Julie Lam, with Becky Ancira Robertson (@beckyancirar), and Victoria Coble (@coble.victoria), founder of @COVIDActionGSO,

acting as emcees. Guests will include: 

We encourage all public health and COVID-safe advocates to read the works of these authors. Until we address systemic bias and ensure equitable healthcare access, historically marginalized patients will continue to face clinical neglect and exclusion from life-changing clinical trials.

The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) creates a weekly COVID-19 “heatmap” based on CDC wastewater data and levels (U.S.). The PMC is led by Michael Hoerger, PhD, MSCR, MBA.

September 28, 2026: From the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative: “The US continues to have at least 40 states and territories with COVlD outbreaks, the same number reported last week. These include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming. There are likely outbreaks in additional states."
 

Top news stories from the past month:

 

September 1, 2026: From The Smithsonian Magazine: For Many Americans, COVID is Still a Chronic and Disabling Disease.

 

September 1, 2026: From CIDRAP: A new study suggests that longer Paxlovid treatment shows no benefits for Long COVID symptoms.

 

September 1, 2026: From The Sick Times: Department of Defense funds an $8 million grant for Long COVID trials.

 

September 2, 2026: From JAMA: A new review shows that COVID19 vaccination significantly reduces the risk of severe illness and hospitalization across all age groups.

 

September 3, 2026: From RNA in New Zealand: Bird flu hoax claims spread online.

 

September 3, 2026: World Health Network launched their “Health Department Outreach Campaign”, encouraging concerned individuals to contact their local health department to ask them to provide clear and accurate public health messaging.

 

September 6, 2026: From Richard A. White, infectious diseases biostatistician/researcher, on Twitter: In Norway, there are 98% more doctor consultations due to memory problems than expected before the pandemic, with concentration disorders showing a 150% higher rate.

 

September 8, 2026: From Today.com: Measles Cases in the U.S. Top 3,000 To Reach Highest Level in Three Decades, CDC Reports.

 

September 9, 2026: From Seoul Economic Daily: Measles cases in Japan have hit a ten-year high.

 

September 9, 2026: From CIDRAP: People who say they’ll get vaccinated against COVID and flu often don’t, citing reasons of inconvenience with finding a location and time, and other access barriers.

 

September 14, 2026: From Fortune Magazine: A new study from researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the University of Toronto conclusively found that patients with long COVID had significantly lower dopamine levels across the brain region tied to motivation, movement, and memory.

 

September 14, 2026: Podcast from Air Quality Matters, hosted by Simon Jones, with Plum Stone from Safer Air Project speaking about indoor air quality as an accessibility issue.

 

September 15, 2026: From the OECD: Rich countries face COVID-related costs for at least twenty more years. There’s also a one in two chance of another similar pandemic in the next 25 years.

 

September 17, 2026: From CIDRAP: Air sampling at four US airports in 2023 and 2024 detected SARS-CoV-2 in over 98% of samples and influenza A in over 17%, according to a study published in PLOS Global Public Health.

 

September 17, 2026: From Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Access to COVID-19 vaccine has changed in Australia. From Oct 1, free COVID vaccines remain available for several groups.

 

September 22, 2026: From the Taipei Times: Taiwan's Ministry of Environment said it is proposing revisions to the Indoor Air Quality Management Act.

 

September 23, 2026: From CIDRAP: According to a new study by the CDC and Illinois public health officials, a measles outbreak at two Chicago homeless shelters in 2024 had an "estimated societal cost" of nearly $9 million.

 

September 23, 2026: From CIDRAP: More than one in ten U.S. healthcare workers reports ongoing long-COVID symptoms.

 

September 24,2026: From CIDRAP: After a nearly month-long delay, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now allowing states to order updated COVID-19 shots for the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program that serves more than half of all U.S. children.

 

September 24, 2026: From CIDRAP: Pennsylvania tops 800 measles cases as CDC acknowledges only one measles death. The state has reported four recent “measles-associated” deaths that the CDC has refused to list on its dashboard.

 

September 29, 2026: From The Sick Times: Interviews with five people with Long COVID while they're in prison.

 

September 29, 2026: RFK Jr spoke about an expansive vision for collecting, sharing and analyzing US health information at a "MAHA" event, hosted by an outspoken anti-vaxxer who's called vaccines "a nightmare". 

 

October 1, 2026: One in eight cancer cases worldwide caused by viral infections like Epstein-Barr, a new study from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) finds. 

 

 

From Mask Bloc Toronto: Monster Mask, a Halloween mask-required event in Toronto

We're excited about all the mask-required events for Halloween we've seen on social media. If you have a mask-required event you'd like us to include in the newsletter, tag us on whatever platform you're on, or email us at info@phan.global.

 

Every week theater journalist Charles Lewis III publishes a comprehensive list of COVID-safe events and performances in the San Francisco Bay Area on his Patreon.

 

Last Saturday of every month in the SF Bay Area: Masked Hangout. Once a month, airborne-aware folks in the South Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area meet at 15980 Blossom Hill Rd in Los Gatos for games, puzzles, coloring, and socializing. Email SouthBayMaskedEvents@gmail.com for details and to be added to the mailing list.

 

Monthly in San Francisco: Infinite Wrench. 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 and extra masks will be available for those who need them. Upcoming masked shows: Sept 5, Oct 3, Nov 7.

 

Streaming online trough November 28, 2026: Hystericalfest: women+ ACT out.

A series of short comedies on Women+ & Invisible Disabilities. Tickets available with a suggested donation of $10. With ASL and closed captioning options. Produced by Violet Surprise Theatre, Terri Lynne Hudson (consulting), & Hysterical Productions/Paula Kamen. This is a recording of a live performance that ran Friday, August 28, 2026.

 

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, via the Facebook group "Still Coviding - Virtual Meetups" (private group, apply for membership). Sign up for weekly emails at ninawildflower@yahoo.com.

 

COVID Safe Art Collective meets online every Sunday for pro-mask adults who want to make art together.

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 supporters that meet Monday evenings, plus Sunday mornings for church services. Contact them via Reddit.

 

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 at 11AM ET. No artistic experience required. More info at Celebrate845.com/COVIDCreativeCoalition. 

 

Every Saturday: 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 organizers 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.

 

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 people. Check their Linktree for the current Zoom link.

 

Molly was a professional actor and clown for 30 years in Chicago, and has had fellowships as well as guest lecture and teaching artist positions all over the country. She hosts an in-person and remote class once a month about how to create theatrical performances in a respirator. Sign up for her mailing list to get the remote link.

on the lighter side…

Credit: The Vertlartnic

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.

 

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

 

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. Thank you for liking and sharing our posts!