LB 954 would prohibit local governments from having laws stricter than the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act

February 21, 2022 5:05 pm

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — A newly introduced bill would help vape shops in Lincoln, taking away any extra city ordinances they are currently dealing with, but health officials are not on board with the idea.

The Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act currently makes it illegal to vape inside, except inside a vape shop. Currently, the City of Lincoln has an ordinance that’s stricter. It prohibits people from vaping even inside a vape store.

The bill in the Legislature would make it so cities couldn’t have stricter laws on vaping than the state has.

“I think it is paramount to be able to come in here and actually try the juice and try the product for yourself — make sure it’s something that you like,” said Timothy Goodman, manager of Lincoln Vapor LLC.

Lincoln’s ordinance means customers are unable to try a product before they purchase it.

“Who wants to spend over $20 to get something that then they are stuck with because it’s not really their cup of tea?” Goodman said.

He feels that if customers are able to try products, the shop may be able to sell more, bringing in bigger profits.

“There is a lot of people who have their regular flavor that they always get. They get it every time, but they kind of want to branch out, but they are always too scared to branch out. If they have the ability to try it, then yeah, we might move a little bit more, or someone might grab an extra bottle to take home with them,” Goodman said.

The president of the Nebraska Medical Association feels that vaping and the smoke emitted from these products are unhealthy and that others should not have to breathe it in.

“We believe that the vape aerosol is carcinogenic and therefore, people shouldn’t have to breathe it,” Dr. Dave Watts said.

Watts also feels that each community should be able to decide what is best for their citizens’ health.

“We feel, well, we are proponents of local control any way, but we feel that local communities need the flexibility to be able to respond to new research as it comes out. It’s already pretty significant research, which is why physicians and other public health people like the American Heart Association, American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, are opposing the bill,” Watts said.

But Goodman feels that having different laws in different parts of the state just makes things confusing.

“I think that having different regulations in one city compared to the next, and that goes for everything even outside of vaping (We had a mask mandate; Omaha didn’t have a mask mandate), it causes confusion. We do get a lot of out-of-town customers, especially at our location off of the highway there. It can be confusing. They come in, and they try to vape, and we are like no,” Goodman said.

Again, the bill would make it so cities couldn’t have stricter laws on vaping than the state has.

No immediate action has been taken by the Health and Human Services Committee. It must approve the bill before senators can vote on it.

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As a facility manager, you’re responsible for keeping your building or even multiple facilities running smoothly around the clock. This requires oversight of the professionals who carry out cleaning, maintaining a sufficient supply of chemicals, tools and other supplies, replacing and repairing equipment and even dealing with unforeseen emergencies like leaks, alarms and more.  

Now, infectious disease risks make maintaining safe and healthy environments even more paramount. With all eyes on cleanliness, facility managers are under an increasing level of pressure to tackle their toughest challenges with ease and within budget. Understanding best practices for dealing with these difficulties can be the difference between a good facility manager and a great one.

[Related: What is “Clean”? Industry Experts Respond]

Breaking Down 4 Barriers to Cleanliness  

Whether you oversee an in-house team of cleaning professionals, outsource to a building service contractor or rely on a blend of both approaches, there are likely numerous cleaning-related challenges that you’ve faced as a facility manager.  

Cleanliness goals can often feel at odds with your budget and schedule. However, being aware of these hurdles and how-tos for lessening their impact or likelihood of occurrence can keep your cleaning program and bottom line in better shape.   

1. Consistency is lacking. Perhaps you’ve noticed that your daytime cleaners are managing cleanliness a bit better than your afternoon or night crew. Or maybe you’ve noticed a lack of consistency from one day to the next among the same team members. Either way, the solution to this problem is to revisit your training procedures to make sure that everyone understands what, how, where and when to clean.  

Are employees relying on the correct tools and equipment to clean? Do they know how to properly use these supplies and machines? Demonstrations and hands-on training can help you sort out any incorrect habits that may have formed or shortcuts they’re taking.  

Investing time in training provides immeasurable ROI because it ensures that cleaning is being carried out in the right way and gives employees a confidence boost and proof that their employer is investing in their success and growth.    

2. New COVID-19 variants are emerging. It seems that every time we turn around, another COVID-19 variant is being discovered and we’re resigned to the fact that we’re living in a pandemic rather than getting through it. These variants can lead to localized outbreaks that put your building and those who occupy it at risk.  

To keep the doors open, it’s important to follow a cleaning for health approach that carefully considers high-touch surfaces and areas. Clean and disinfect these the most frequently. Other lower-priority surfaces can be addressed with a cleaner and disinfected as needed.  

Additionally, review your outbreak response plan so that you are prepared in the event that your staff members become sick or the building needs to temporarily close. With the right strategy, training, chemicals and tools in place, you will be prepared to reduce the spread of all types of pathogens.   

3. Equipment is aging. From floor care scrubbers to vacuums to custodial carts, there are numerous types of equipment that cleaning teams regularly use. This equipment must be in good condition in order to clean effectively and efficiently. Keep a detailed log of the age of your equipment and the dates of service. Periodically inspect machines and other tools to ensure they are in good condition.  

If aging equipment is not performing well, look into repairs and replacement to determine which option will provide the best results and ROI. When equipment is damaged, underperforming or difficult to operate, staff will become frustrated and may turn to alternative methods of cleaning that impact consistency and even safety. Make sure that staff have access to machines and tools that are durable, easy to use and reliable so that they don’t have to work harder by recleaning to make up for aging equipment.  

4. Your team is understaffed. Throughout the pandemic, many organizations have encountered recruitment and retention issues and unfortunately, the cleaning industry is accustomed to facing high turnover rates. To attract great talent, fair wages and benefits are key, but you must also go beyond these financial drivers. Employees want to feel aligned with their employer on things like safety, sustainability and career development.  

Invest in safe chemicals that don’t irritate skin or eyes or release volatile organic compounds that negatively impact indoor air quality. Moving away from toxic products with questionable ingredients is necessary, as professional cleaners use these solutions every day.  

Select equipment that will enhance workplace safety, like floor scrubbers with high-quality squeegees to pick up excess liquid and reduce the risk of slips and falls. Wherever possible, aim to be more sustainable to showcase your commitment to protecting the planet.  

Invest in regular training to not only ensure consistency, as mentioned previously, but to help employees reach their career goals and move up through your organization. Promoting your commitment to safety, sustainability and your people during the hiring process, onboarding and employee tenure can help you build and keep a great team.

[Related: How a Cultural Shift in Hotel Air Quality Will Keep People Safe]

Work Smarter, Not Harder  

It’s an understatement that facility managers and their teams are working hard. The pandemic has led to an extensive overhaul for many commercial cleaning programs, requiring employees to adapt and learn new ways of cleaning and disinfecting. At the same time, organizations are struggling to recruit and retain cleaning professionals. Thus, it can often feel as if there aren’t enough hours in the day to address all of the priorities and the concerns of those who use these facilities.   

While hard work is commendable, in order to limit burnout, lapses in cleanliness and the risk of injuries and illness, it’s important to find ways to work smarter. Working smarter can help cleaning teams avoid larger issues down the road that can derail their progress and wellbeing.  

Being mindful of the top FM challenges and strategies for alleviating or overcoming them has many benefits. It can help increase confidence among those who work in or visit your facility, improve productivity and consistency, reduce costs, enhance your organization’s commitment to sustainability and more.

About the Author:

Kurt Kuempel is the vice president of GSF USA, a leading provider of cleaning services.

Read next: How to Address Mental Health with Your FM Staff

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Tasha Nelson’s 10-year-old son held back tears when he heard the news. The two were in the car when the announcement came through the radio: Virginia’s freshly sworn-in governor had signed an order attempting to ban mask mandates in schools.”My son looked up at me and he had tears in his eyes because he knew what it meant. He said, ‘Mom, does that mean I can’t go to school anymore?'” Nelson said. “He said, ‘Can’t we let the governor know about kids like me? I want to go to school too.'”Jack, a fourth-grader, has cystic fibrosis, a progressive genetic disease that causes persistent, damaging lung infections, making it harder to breathe over time. Like other immunocompromised, disabled and chronically ill Americans, Jack was taking measures, like masking, to dodge infections before the pandemic too. But with COVID-19 still rampant, it’s not as easy. Even though he’s vaccinated, the virus poses a serious, potentially deadly, risk to Jack. His 2-year-old brother, who is not yet eligible for the shots, is another concern.Nelson is among a group of parents who sued Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin over that order, claiming it puts students who are immunocompromised or have disabilities at risk and violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. CNN has reached out to Youngkin’s office for comment on the lawsuit.Roughly two weeks after that lawsuit was filed, the governor signed a bill into law allowing parents to opt their children out of school mask mandates.Nelson is keeping her son at home again because of it.”This whole pandemic, our culture, media (and) government has made it very clear to high-risk and disabled people that we are an acceptable loss,” Nelson said. “We’re doing everything we can to survive this pandemic too.”COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are declining nationwide, but transmission — how much virus is circulating in a community — remains high in more than 90% of the United States, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC still recommends everyone to mask indoors in areas of substantial or high transmission.But public health experts are split on whether it’s time to lift mitigation measures. Some say dropping protections at a time when COVID-19 numbers are so high is a political move rather than a public health one. Others say the downward trends justify those moves and note Omicron is milder than earlier variants for most healthy people.As local and state leaders nationwide remove mask and vaccination rules, those at high risk for severe disease say doing away with protections now leaves them more vulnerable, especially as they, or family members, return to in-person work or school. And for some, COVID-19 vaccines are not as effective in staving off a severe bout with the virus, prompting the CDC to recommend a fourth shot for immunocompromised people 12 years and older in October.Roughly seven million American adults are immunocompromised, the CDC estimates. While not all have conditions that leave them severely immunocompromised and vulnerable to severe COVID-19, about 61 million adults — roughly one in four in the U.S. — have some type of disability, according to the agency. More than three million children had a disability in 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.”Everyone knows someone who had cancer, everyone knows somebody who had a kidney transplant for one reason or another, or someone who’s got Alzheimer’s or someone who has a heart condition or someone who was born with a rare immunodeficiency,” said Sara Willette, who has been in isolation with her husband in Iowa since the state reported its first case of the virus, some 700 days ago.”The more protections that we remove, the less accessible the rest of the world becomes to people who are high-risk,” Willette said.Even though Willette is triple vaccinated and preparing for her fourth shot, catching the virus could be deadly. She has Common Variable Immunodeficiency Disorder (CVID), meaning her body does not produce protective antibodies to defend itself against pathogens like bacteria or viruses.The couple considered leaving their home in Ames and moving to southern California, where stricter masking protocols could have helped protect her. But they ruled out the idea after California’s governor lifted the indoor mask mandate for vaccinated people this month, citing a drop in infections.Iowa’s lawmakers are going even further — a bill looking to effectively ban vaccine and mask mandates is making its way through the legislature. “We have to make a choice between staying alive and having a life,” Willette said.The high-risk people CNN spoke to said as the country eagerly looks to move on from the pandemic, they feel forgotten — and worse, like they don’t matter to the rest of the American public. Some say they feel like they’ve been left to adapt to a more dangerous reality, while others are now mapping out a permanently isolated lifestyle.Tracking COVID-19:A fourth COVID-19 shot might be recommended this fallIvermectin doesn’t prevent severe disease from COVID-19, new study finds COVID-19 hospitalizations average $4,000 in out-of-pocket costs per visit, research says Families faced with impossible choicesIn Wilmington, Massachusetts, Karen Yurek’s family is navigating a tough balancing act. Yurek and her husband are both high-risk and on immunosuppressant medications. She has rheumatoid arthritis and he has multiple sclerosis. Both have received four COVID-19 shots and work remotely.Their family was almost entirely isolated until last week, when their 6-year-old son, Billy, returned to school. Billy is vaccinated, and Yurek and her husband felt he could stay safe with the help of a universal masking requirement that was in place.Then, state officials announced they were lifting the mandate at the end of February. Yurek wrote to the Wilmington School Committee, urging them to keep masks mandatory to “protect the members of our community who don’t have the luxury of ‘normal’ anymore.”The committee voted Wednesday to lift its mask mandate, posing a difficult dilemma for Yurek’s family: pull their child out of in-person class or risk serious illness.”It’s really demoralizing,” Yurek said. “It just feels like everyone’s so focused on getting back to normal that … they’re forgetting about all of the really at-risk people. And if they’re not forgetting about them, that they’re just saying, ‘Well, you’re on your own.'”Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN’s John Berman on Thursday that lifting school mask mandates given the current transmission levels could push cases back up. “We’ve been to this show before,” he said. “Where things came down, you pull back a little, and it bounces back.”When asked this month about immunocompromised Americans who feel left behind, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the agency is working to update its mask guidance so it is “relevant for the public, but also for the public who is immunocompromised and disabled,” but offered no further details.To help keep more people safe, mask requirements should depend on how much virus is circulating in a community, said Raymund Razonable, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic and vice chair of the division of public health, infectious diseases and occupational medicine in Rochester, Minnesota. Shedding masks at a time the virus is still rampant and the threat of more variants — including an Omicron subvariant — loom is a risk, Razonable told CNN.All but one of the remaining states that still had mask mandates in place — Hawaii — have announced plans to remove them.Other local leaders have announced the end of vaccine measures too. The country’s capital put an end to its indoor business vaccine requirement Tuesday. In the following days, Philadelphia and Boston also announced they were dropping vaccine requirements. In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams told employers to end work-from-home policies, saying in a news conference, “We need people back to work.””Unfortunately, for the most part, we’re seeing a lot of disregard for the immunocompromised and the disabled community,” said April Moreno, a public health expert and founder of the Autoimmune Community Institute, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization. “We’re hurting.”Kris Giere, a 42-year-old who has Type 1 diabetes and lives in Indiana, a state that ended its mask mandate last April, echoed the same.”I’m tired of having to worry about how many disease vectors I’m in contact with,” Giere said. “I’m on edge every day, because I don’t get to go back to normal. There is no going back to normal for me.”‘We don’t have the luxury of pretending the pandemic is over’When the CDC updated its isolation guidelines in December to say people can leave isolation five days after testing positive if their symptoms are gone or getting better, and to wear a well-fitted mask for 10 days, the agency also urged them to “avoid people who are immunocompromised or at high risk for severe disease,” for at least 10 days.But it can be hard to know when someone — a coworker, a friend or a passerby — is immunocompromised or high-risk, Moreno pointed out. It’s why many conditions are known as “invisible illnesses.””No one … has given me a giant foam hat with an arrow saying ‘immunocompromised’ on it,” said Matthew Cortland, who works on disability and health policy at Data for Progress, a left-leaning think tank. “The lengths we have to go to in order to mitigate, to some extent, the risk that society at large is just offloading onto us is absurd.”Cortland permanently works from home. But many friends who are also chronically ill and disabled don’t have the same option. That’s why public health measures remain critical, Cortland said, including global vaccination campaigns, widespread availability and use of high-quality masks, research into more adaptive personal protective equipment, improvements to indoor air quality, better testing procedures and sufficient treatments.The U.S. has increased its order for one of the key preventive therapies for the immunocompromised, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra announced last week. But even with that boost, the country will only have enough of that monoclonal antibody treatment for less than a quarter of its immunocompromised population. And while there are other COVID-19 therapeutics that can help people including the severely immunocompromised, they are still also in short supply in many parts of the U.S. and won’t be more widely available until spring, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said.”There’s not enough for the millions of immunocompromised patients,” said Razonable. In his hospital, he said there is a “sufficient” supply to cover only “the highest risk group” of people.Two years in, high-risk Americans are feeling traumatized and exhausted from the daily risk assessments and new hurdles that life in a COVID-era America comes with.As Cortland puts it: “No one wants to actually be done with the pandemic more than disabled, chronically ill, and immunocompromised Americans. We just don’t have the luxury of pretending the pandemic is over when it isn’t. And it clearly is not.”

Tasha Nelson’s 10-year-old son held back tears when he heard the news. The two were in the car when the announcement came through the radio: Virginia’s freshly sworn-in governor had signed an order attempting to ban mask mandates in schools.

“My son looked up at me and he had tears in his eyes because he knew what it meant. He said, ‘Mom, does that mean I can’t go to school anymore?'” Nelson said. “He said, ‘Can’t we let the governor know about kids like me? I want to go to school too.'”

Jack, a fourth-grader, has cystic fibrosis, a progressive genetic disease that causes persistent, damaging lung infections, making it harder to breathe over time. Like other immunocompromised, disabled and chronically ill Americans, Jack was taking measures, like masking, to dodge infections before the pandemic too. But with COVID-19 still rampant, it’s not as easy. Even though he’s vaccinated, the virus poses a serious, potentially deadly, risk to Jack. His 2-year-old brother, who is not yet eligible for the shots, is another concern.

Nelson is among a group of parents who sued Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin over that order, claiming it puts students who are immunocompromised or have disabilities at risk and violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. CNN has reached out to Youngkin’s office for comment on the lawsuit.

Roughly two weeks after that lawsuit was filed, the governor signed a bill into law allowing parents to opt their children out of school mask mandates.

Nelson is keeping her son at home again because of it.

“This whole pandemic, our culture, media (and) government has made it very clear to high-risk and disabled people that we are an acceptable loss,” Nelson said. “We’re doing everything we can to survive this pandemic too.”

COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are declining nationwide, but transmission — how much virus is circulating in a community — remains high in more than 90% of the United States, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC still recommends everyone to mask indoors in areas of substantial or high transmission.

But public health experts are split on whether it’s time to lift mitigation measures. Some say dropping protections at a time when COVID-19 numbers are so high is a political move rather than a public health one. Others say the downward trends justify those moves and note Omicron is milder than earlier variants for most healthy people.

As local and state leaders nationwide remove mask and vaccination rules, those at high risk for severe disease say doing away with protections now leaves them more vulnerable, especially as they, or family members, return to in-person work or school. And for some, COVID-19 vaccines are not as effective in staving off a severe bout with the virus, prompting the CDC to recommend a fourth shot for immunocompromised people 12 years and older in October.

Roughly seven million American adults are immunocompromised, the CDC estimates. While not all have conditions that leave them severely immunocompromised and vulnerable to severe COVID-19, about 61 million adults — roughly one in four in the U.S. — have some type of disability, according to the agency. More than three million children had a disability in 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Everyone knows someone who had cancer, everyone knows somebody who had a kidney transplant for one reason or another, or someone who’s got Alzheimer’s or someone who has a heart condition or someone who was born with a rare immunodeficiency,” said Sara Willette, who has been in isolation with her husband in Iowa since the state reported its first case of the virus, some 700 days ago.

“The more protections that we remove, the less accessible the rest of the world becomes to people who are high-risk,” Willette said.

Even though Willette is triple vaccinated and preparing for her fourth shot, catching the virus could be deadly. She has Common Variable Immunodeficiency Disorder (CVID), meaning her body does not produce protective antibodies to defend itself against pathogens like bacteria or viruses.

The couple considered leaving their home in Ames and moving to southern California, where stricter masking protocols could have helped protect her. But they ruled out the idea after California’s governor lifted the indoor mask mandate for vaccinated people this month, citing a drop in infections.

Iowa’s lawmakers are going even further — a bill looking to effectively ban vaccine and mask mandates is making its way through the legislature. “We have to make a choice between staying alive and having a life,” Willette said.

The high-risk people CNN spoke to said as the country eagerly looks to move on from the pandemic, they feel forgotten — and worse, like they don’t matter to the rest of the American public. Some say they feel like they’ve been left to adapt to a more dangerous reality, while others are now mapping out a permanently isolated lifestyle.

Tracking COVID-19:

Families faced with impossible choices

In Wilmington, Massachusetts, Karen Yurek’s family is navigating a tough balancing act. Yurek and her husband are both high-risk and on immunosuppressant medications. She has rheumatoid arthritis and he has multiple sclerosis. Both have received four COVID-19 shots and work remotely.

Their family was almost entirely isolated until last week, when their 6-year-old son, Billy, returned to school. Billy is vaccinated, and Yurek and her husband felt he could stay safe with the help of a universal masking requirement that was in place.

Then, state officials announced they were lifting the mandate at the end of February. Yurek wrote to the Wilmington School Committee, urging them to keep masks mandatory to “protect the members of our community who don’t have the luxury of ‘normal’ anymore.”

The committee voted Wednesday to lift its mask mandate, posing a difficult dilemma for Yurek’s family: pull their child out of in-person class or risk serious illness.

“It’s really demoralizing,” Yurek said. “It just feels like everyone’s so focused on getting back to normal that … they’re forgetting about all of the really at-risk people. And if they’re not forgetting about them, that they’re just saying, ‘Well, you’re on your own.'”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN’s John Berman on Thursday that lifting school mask mandates given the current transmission levels could push cases back up. “We’ve been to this show before,” he said. “Where things came down, you pull back a little, and it bounces back.”

When asked this month about immunocompromised Americans who feel left behind, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the agency is working to update its mask guidance so it is “relevant for the public, but also for the public who is immunocompromised and disabled,” but offered no further details.

To help keep more people safe, mask requirements should depend on how much virus is circulating in a community, said Raymund Razonable, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic and vice chair of the division of public health, infectious diseases and occupational medicine in Rochester, Minnesota. Shedding masks at a time the virus is still rampant and the threat of more variants — including an Omicron subvariant — loom is a risk, Razonable told CNN.

All but one of the remaining states that still had mask mandates in place — Hawaii — have announced plans to remove them.

Other local leaders have announced the end of vaccine measures too. The country’s capital put an end to its indoor business vaccine requirement Tuesday. In the following days, Philadelphia and Boston also announced they were dropping vaccine requirements. In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams told employers to end work-from-home policies, saying in a news conference, “We need people back to work.”

“Unfortunately, for the most part, we’re seeing a lot of disregard for the immunocompromised and the disabled community,” said April Moreno, a public health expert and founder of the Autoimmune Community Institute, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization. “We’re hurting.”

Kris Giere, a 42-year-old who has Type 1 diabetes and lives in Indiana, a state that ended its mask mandate last April, echoed the same.

“I’m tired of having to worry about how many disease vectors I’m in contact with,” Giere said. “I’m on edge every day, because I don’t get to go back to normal. There is no going back to normal for me.”

‘We don’t have the luxury of pretending the pandemic is over’

When the CDC updated its isolation guidelines in December to say people can leave isolation five days after testing positive if their symptoms are gone or getting better, and to wear a well-fitted mask for 10 days, the agency also urged them to “avoid people who are immunocompromised or at high risk for severe disease,” for at least 10 days.

But it can be hard to know when someone — a coworker, a friend or a passerby — is immunocompromised or high-risk, Moreno pointed out. It’s why many conditions are known as “invisible illnesses.”

“No one … has given me a giant foam hat with an arrow saying ‘immunocompromised’ on it,” said Matthew Cortland, who works on disability and health policy at Data for Progress, a left-leaning think tank. “The lengths we have to go to in order to mitigate, to some extent, the risk that society at large is just offloading onto us is absurd.”

Cortland permanently works from home. But many friends who are also chronically ill and disabled don’t have the same option. That’s why public health measures remain critical, Cortland said, including global vaccination campaigns, widespread availability and use of high-quality masks, research into more adaptive personal protective equipment, improvements to indoor air quality, better testing procedures and sufficient treatments.

The U.S. has increased its order for one of the key preventive therapies for the immunocompromised, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra announced last week. But even with that boost, the country will only have enough of that monoclonal antibody treatment for less than a quarter of its immunocompromised population. And while there are other COVID-19 therapeutics that can help people including the severely immunocompromised, they are still also in short supply in many parts of the U.S. and won’t be more widely available until spring, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said.

“There’s not enough for the millions of immunocompromised patients,” said Razonable. In his hospital, he said there is a “sufficient” supply to cover only “the highest risk group” of people.

Two years in, high-risk Americans are feeling traumatized and exhausted from the daily risk assessments and new hurdles that life in a COVID-era America comes with.

As Cortland puts it: “No one wants to actually be done with the pandemic more than disabled, chronically ill, and immunocompromised Americans. We just don’t have the luxury of pretending the pandemic is over when it isn’t. And it clearly is not.”

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CASPR Group Rebrands As CASPR Technologies | ACHR News

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[Image from Thermo Fisher]Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO) announced today that it launched a new rapid environmental COVID-19 diagnostic platform.

Waltham, Massachusetts-based Thermo Fisher designed its Renvo rapid in-air pathogen PCR test for detecting the virus on air samples collected through the company’s Thermo Scientific AerosolSense Sampler.

According to a news release, the company designed the test for environmental surveillance only, rather than diagnostic purposes, in communal locations like schools, businesses, healthcare facilities, government buildings nad other public areas. It offers fast, accurate detection of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing COVID-19) pathogens through indoor air sampling without the need for specialized training or sending samples to a lab for analysis.

Thermo Fisher’s system uses proprietary Oscar PCR technology to shorten thermocycling times and produce results in just 30 minutes, improving on the four to 24-hour testing turnaround time previously available using the AerosolSense Sampler service.

“As the world learns to live with COVID-19 and adapts to the rapidly changing dynamics of new variants, there is a clear need for heightened surveillance and testing of indoor air quality,” Thermo Fisher VP and GM of Environmental and Process Monitoring Siqi Tan said in the release. “For facilities that already have our AerosolSense Samplers, the Renvo Rapid PCR Test can be used as an accessory to strengthen their testing processes. The powerful combination of the AerosolSense Sampler and the Renvo Rapid PCR Test offers fast, highly accurate environmental surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 for greater peace of mind.”

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