BEVERLY — In a dramatic shift in the fight to clean up toxic chemicals that have threatened a Beverly neighborhood for decades, state regulators are cracking down on the company responsible for the contamination.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection ruled that Varian Medical Systems’ 20-year-long cleanup plan is violating state regulations and ordered the company to come up with a new plan that will solve the problem within two years. If not, the company could be fined or forced to pay for work conducted by the state.

The state’s harsh new stance was laid out in a letter sent to Varian on Friday by Stephen Johnson, MassDEP’s deputy regional director for its bureau of waste site cleanup. The rebuke of the company drew praise and relief from neighbors who have grown increasingly concerned that cancer-causing chemicals emanating from the company’s former site at 150 Sohier Road could be getting into their homes.

“We are very pleased and grateful that the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has decided to hold Varian Medical Systems, Inc. accountable and to compel them, finally, to meaningfully address the decades-old contamination related to the chemicals they released into our community,” Voices of Concern North Beverly, a neighborhood group that formed in 2020 in response to the failed cleanup, said in a statement on Monday.

“MassDEP’s action brings us closer to a future in which we no longer have to worry about what lies beneath our homes, our property values, and our children’s safety from hazardous chemicals where they play,” the statement said.

Varian Medical Systems, a $3 billion company located in California, no longer owns the property at 150 Sohier Road but under state law is responsible for the cleanup of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals that were dumped on the site by a predecessor company the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The contamination has migrated in the groundwater to the nearby neighborhood, raising concerns that chemical vapors are getting into homes and businesses.

Varian began cleaning up the property in 1992. But as the operation faded from public view, the company stopped holding public meetings and testing the indoor air of homes.

The cleanup came back into public consciousness in 2020 when a series of Salem News stories revealed that levels of toxic chemicals in the groundwater were still high. Residents formed the neighborhood group to pressure public officials and state regulators into paying more attention to the cleanup and its lack of effectiveness.

In his letter, Johnson said MassDEP’s detailed review of records uncovered that Varian has violated state regulations regarding hazardous waste cleanups by failing to define the extent of contamination in neighborhoods, streams, and in bedrock areas.

For example, when the city raised concerns more than 20 years ago about contamination under Building 5 on the property, Johnson said, the company said no new test wells were needed and that no remediation was planned for that area. But when tests were conducted recently in a new monitoring well that the DEP told Varian to install, they detected levels of trichloroethylene, a chemical that can cause cancer, at 600,000 parts per billion.

David Lang, a groundwater consultant from Beverly who has been advising the neighborhood group, said concerns about indoor air are raised when levels of TCE reach 300 parts per billion.

“Six hundred thousand is way over acceptable,” Lang said.

Johnson said Varian also violated state regulations by failing to recommend a plan that will lead to a permanent solution. He said the company significantly understated how much it was required to reduce contamination in source areas of the site. The actual state guidance calls for reductions that are “significantly below and more stringent” than the limits cited by Varian, he said.

Johnson also said that a “groundwater seep” that was discovered by residents last year in a nearby stream “constitutes an uncontrolled and continuing source of hazardous material discharge.” The stream runs behind the nearby neighborhood, and children have played in the stream over the years, according to neighbors.

Varian Medical Systems said in a statement that they “disagree with the conclusions of this letter, but will continue to work closely with MassDEP in the clean-up of the site.”

“The testing conducted in conjunction with MassDEP has consistently shown no significant risk in the neighborhood,” the statement said. “The health and safety of the area’s residents has always been our primary concern.”

Jan Schlichtmann, an environmental lawyer who lives in Beverly, called the action taken by MassDEP a “historic advance” in the Varian cleanup saga. The contamination on the property was first reported in 1985 and the initial cleanup began in 1992.

“I would say it’s extremely unusual that the DEP would issue an order after all these years in which they were going down one path of remediation and basically call it a failure and saying they’re out of compliance,” Schlichtmann said. “It’s absolutely the right decision for sure.”

The company has been trying to remove the underground chemicals through techniques called chemical oxidation, bioremediation and soil vapor extraction. Varian officials have said they would consider a new plan called thermal treatment, which involves heating up the ground under buildings on the property to vaporize and remove contamination that is the source of the chemicals that are migrating in groundwater into the neighborhood. But Johnson’s letter said the company failed to evaluate the treatment by the deadline imposed by the DEP.

Johnson’s letter said Varian now has until Feb. 18, 2023, to submit a statement that lays out either a permanent or temporary solution. 

VOC North Beverly, which is partnering with Shore Country Day School, called the DEP ruling a “hard-won result” that shows what can happen when a community works together. The group thanked Mayor Mike Cahill, the Beverly City Council, state Sen. Joan Lovely, state Rep. Jerry Parisella, and Congressman Seth Moulton for their “unwavering support,” as well as the “dedicated public servants at MassDEP.”

“As a group of residents and neighbors, we have overpowered corporate complacency in the face of regulations intended both to protect our health and to ensure that those who contaminate our environment do the work required to clean up the mess they have made,” the statement said.

“While we are thrilled by this action, we look forward to continued, vigilant work with MassDEP, our elected representatives, and the responsible company to finally and completely remediate this toxic waste spill that has needlessly contaminated and threatened our neighborhood for more than a generation and, ultimately, bring long-sought peace of mind to our community,” the statement added.

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Originally Appeared Here

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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Originally Appeared Here

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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Originally Appeared Here

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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Texas School District Improves IAQ with Trane and Synexis | ACHR News

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PHILADELPHIA — 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 US 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 US — have some type of disability, according to the agency. More than three million children had a disability in 2019, according to the US 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.

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 US 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 US and won’t be more widely available until spring, the US 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.”

The-CNN-Wire & 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

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A freak accident claimed the life of a New York woman when a 2,000-pound headstone fell on. Now, her family is suing. The suit claims the incident happened October 28 at the Baron Hirsch Cemetery. The New York Post says it is not entirely clear how the headstone fell on her, though the woman and her son were both employed to work at the cemetery through a third party company.

The Post says the family the suit against the cemetery, claiming the grounds were not maintained to ensure safety. Baron Hirsch Cemetery was established in 1899 in Staten Island and has around 500 plots on 80 acres. The woman killed was 53-year-old mother of five. She was rushed to the Richmond University Medical Center where she died from her injuries the very same day.

While it may sound like an unusual cause of death, a very similar incident happened around a year ago at another cemetery in the state. Police say a 42 year-old man from Coram, NY was leveling out the bottom of a grave at Washington Memorial Park in Mount Sinai, when it ended up collapsing down on him. Officials say the man’s coworkers tried to dig him out from all the dirt but were unsuccessful. ABC NY says the man was buried in a hole over seven feet deep, which has got to be an absolutely horrifying way to die. This is the stuff of nightmares.

Emergency crews responded to the incoming 911 call, but sadly the man was pronounced dead at the scene, according to authorities.

Read More: New York Man Working In Cemetery Dies When Grave Collapses On Him | https://wpdh.com/new-york-man-working-in-cemetery-dies-when-grave-collapses-on-him/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

Goosebumps and other bodily reactions, explained

KEEP READING: See 25 natural ways to boost your immune system

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LocalGov caught up with Claudio Parrinello, CEO and founder of PlanetWatch, to find how air quality monitoring is being disrupted on a global scale by leveraging advanced technologies and the power of communities.

Q. Why is air monitoring so important right now?

A. Air pollution is currently one of the biggest threats to our climate, but it is also one of the biggest threats to the population’s health. The impact of air pollution on our lives was made abundantly clear when, earlier this January, Londoners were warned to limit their outdoor exercise following soaring pollution levels. This episode of “very high” pollution ranked ten out of ten for potential harm, the first such event since March 2018. With recent research showing that as much as 1.8 million excess deaths were caused by pollution in 2019 alone, fighting air pollution must become a priority.

In addition, the pandemic has highlighted the importance of indoor air quality. On average, we spend 90% of our time indoors and, according to the WHO’s estimates, 3.8 million people die prematurely each year from illnesses attributable to household air pollution. Clearly, tackling both indoor and outdoor air pollution is now more important than ever. Therefore, air monitoring is the key to identifying dangerous areas of high pollution, both indoors and outdoors, and enacting solutions which can help improve the health of both our planet and population.

Q. What role can individuals play in monitoring their air?

A. Increasingly, individuals want to protect the environment around them. For example, younger generations are particularly passionate about their climate. In fact, a recent survey revealed that 60% of young people are very worried or extremely worried about climate change whilst only 31% feel governments can be trusted with the task. In light of this, it is clear that individuals are seeking for a way to get involved in tackling climate change and find solutions beyond government policy.

At PlanetWatch, we encourage citizens to look after the air they breathe. Our unique system incentivises citizens to operate air quality sensors and earn tokens as rewards for data streams. By relying on this community of PlanetWatchers, we are able to quickly and cost effectively build a dense air monitoring network on a worldwide scale – an example of citizen science at its very best. This empowers individuals to play a role in improving their local environment and to gain knowledge about the air they are breathing. Where many may have felt that climate change is too big of an issue for them to truly make a difference, PlanetWatch’s system lets individuals contribute to the wider effort simply by the smaller action of collecting data.

With more than 90% of the global population currently breathing air with pollution levels that are well above the WHO’s 2005 guidelines, air quality is an issue affecting everyone and, as such, everyone should have the opportunity to play a part in addressing it. A community-driven approach to air monitoring puts individuals at the heart of the process enabling them to take charge of the future of their planet.

Q. How does a community-driven approach to air monitoring improve data collection?

A. Air monitoring is essential to identifying pollution hotspots and gathering the necessary volume of data to inform policies and initiatives that ultimately tackle high pollution. However, traditional air monitoring methods rely on a scarce distribution of sensors which can only produce, at best, an approximation of local data making it difficult to truly pinpoint areas of concern. By empowering individuals to utilise air monitoring sensors, a real-time network of sensors which deliver accurate and hyperlocal information is created.

PlanetWatch’s distinctive feature is its blockchain-based data recording, tracking and incentive system, which encourages PlanetWatchers to stream air quality data to earn tokens. PlanetWatchers will shortly be able to use these tokens to buy useful products or even, following our partnership with Treedom, plant trees in sustainable forests.

As a provider of environmental data, PlanetWatch was naturally led to partner with Algorand, which offers a highly scalable, decentralized and secure blockchain, being also one of the “greenest” available options in terms of energy consumption. This blockchain technology safely stores information from sensors anonymously, building a global and permanent air quality ledger which can provide increasingly reliable insight into the quality of the air around us.

Accuracy of data can be important on a personal scale. For example, considering 16% of global children’s asthma cases are linked to air pollution levels, equipping individuals with up-to-date information on the air they breathe can be an immediate matter of health. Nonetheless, with a network of more than 50,000 sensors already installed – mostly in Europe and in the US -, and plans to reach relevant coverage across at least 20 large cities around the world in 2022, this system of air monitoring is also key for filling in the gaps in governmental networks and allowing local authorities to enact change on a wider scale.

Q. How can local authorities utilise this air monitoring system?

A. By adopting this community-driven approach to air monitoring, local authorities and communities can leverage real-time data on pollution levels to enact smarter policies and counteract the damaging effects of pollution. The hyperlocal data enables the most effective solutions, such as traffic reduction schemes, emission taxes and the identification of safe locations for public facilities, to be set.

Through harnessing this real-time hyperlocal air quality data, local authorities can, for instance, become aware of the best times to exercise outdoors in specific regions or specific days to avoid high pollution areas. As a result, PlanetWatch’s system has the potential to trigger real policy change delivering long-term health and environmental benefits to local communities. Our recently announced partnership with the Mayor of Miami to create a network of sensors around the city highlights how local authorities are already taking advantage of this data to drive change. A smarter air monitoring system can lead to smarter policies and smarter cities.

Considering 800 lives were saved across Europe during the first lockdown due to better air quality, it is clear that improving our air quality is essential. Having the correct data to support policies against pollution will be key to continue working towards protecting the health of our population and our planet.

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