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Joseph Allen runs a major public health research project at Harvard University, probing how indoor air quality affects human health and cognition. He consults with companies on ventilation and air filtration, and during the pandemic he became a prominent voice on public health, writing dozens of op-eds criticizing early guidance from health authorities and debunking misconceptions about how the virus spreads. But none of it would have happened if he hadn’t washed out as an FBI recruit.

The son of a New York City homicide detective who opened his own investigative agency, Allen spent his teens and 20s helping with the family business. He did surveillance, undercover work, computer forensics, and skiptrace—tracking down people who left town to avoid alimony. Eventually he took over the agency, leading investigations and supervising eight agents..... 

More at source: Science Magazine

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The current 7-day average of daily new cases is 61,976. This is a 64.1% increase from the previous week, & a 439.7% increase from the lowest average in June 2021.

More info at CDC

Cases and hospitalizations from COVID-19 are skyrocketing in Louisiana, causing record-high rises that Gov. John Bel Edwards called “scary,” driven by the delta variant.

Dr. Joseph Kanter called delta “dangerous and dominant.” It accounts for more than 80 percent of COVID-19 cases in Louisiana.

On July 8, when Kanter first warned that the delta variant had become the dominant strain of the coronavirus in Louisiana, hospitalizations sat at 351.

A little over two weeks later, that number has quickly jumped to 1,390.

Susan Hassig, an infectious disease epidemiologist with Tulane University, explains how and why the delta variant poses the pandemic’s greatest threat.

What it means that the delta variant is more transmissible than previous strains of the coronavirus

It does appear to interact with the people that it infects differently than the viruses that we have dealt with before. And so what it appears is going on is that the timeframe that we were used to seeing with the original virus, about seven days of time from exposure to development of symptoms, and starting to shed the virus is shorter, some estimates are putting it three to four days, which is has a tremendous impact on transmission, it's going to cycle through people much more quickly.

In addition, what has been found in a number of small studies of people infected with the Delta variant is that they are producing enormously more virus than people with the other variants. And so that means they've got more virus to shed. When they speak, when they talk, when they laugh, there's just more virus there for them to push into the air, and thus potentially expose people to. Some estimates have gone from 100 times to 1000 times more virus particles. So that's a huge difference.

And then it's appearing that people are staying infectious, able to spread the virus for just a little bit longer. So they're starting earlier, having more virus and then lasting perhaps a little longer. And so that's what winds up adding up into then each individual who's infected being able to infect more people, and hence more transmissibility.

Whether the fourth surge will be faster than the three previous surges of COVID-19 in Louisiana

I think in the unvaccinated, and unfortunately here in Louisiana we have a lot of people who are unvaccinated, I think we are going to see very steep rises. The fact that just the other day, we had over 5000 cases being reported. Not all of those had been collected on one day, but a large number of them had been, over 3000 of them had been. That is numbers of cases and infections being identified that we haven't seen for a very long time. And for it to move from just a couple of hundred to those levels over the span of a couple of weeks, we are going to see this climb very quickly, I'm afraid. And we are seeing that kind of almost vertical climb in hospitalizations as well, which is really, really concerning.

More at source: WWNO

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Should you be wearing a mask again? Here’s a map of the Covid hot spots subject to the CDC’s new guidance...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Tuesday that fully vaccinated Americans start wearing masks indoors again in places with high Covid-19 transmission rates as nationwide infection levels are once again on the rise.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters Tuesday that masks should be worn in public, indoor settings by everyone, including fully vaccinated people, in areas “with substantial and high transmission.”

But what exactly is “high” or “substantial” transmission, and where are the areas the CDC is concerned about?

The agency uses two measures to group U.S. counties into four levels of community transmission: the number of new cases per 100,000 residents and the percent of Covid tests that are positive over the past week.

More at source: CNBC

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CPS poised to rehire Aramark to clean schools despite pledging not to and record of filthy schools

A month before teachers and students return to Chicago Public Schools buildings and amid a surge of the highly contagious COVID-19 Delta variant, district leaders are still finalizing who will be cleaning classrooms — and are making plans to rehire Aramark despite a history of problems with the janitorial behemoth.  

With Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s support, CPS leaders announced last year that they would dump private facilities managers Aramark and SodexoMAGIC, which for years had near full autonomy in maintaining schools, including many that remained filthy. The plan was to return control and oversight of the cleaning and upkeep of hundreds of schools back to CPS employees while finding a new vendor to help run those operations.

More at source: Chicago Sun Times

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Yesterday, SEIU Local 105’s bargaining team began their first day of negotiations with several Denver cleaning contractors to push for better wages and working conditions for janitors.

Meanwhile, several dozen janitors congregated at SEIU Local 105’s office in a show of support for their negotiators.

“Janitors feel like they’re in a good position. They really feel like they put their lives on the line last year, on the front lines of the pandemic,” said David Fernandez, Communications Director at SEIU Local 105. “Also, just the costs of commercial real estate, of building, in our downtown has just gone up in that time, so there’s really no reason why we shouldn’t be paying our janitors a living wage, why we shouldn’t be ensuring better protections for them.”

More at source: Colorado Times Recorder

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The truth is that everything single thing we do every day has an impact on the planet -- good or bad. The good news is that people have the power to control most of their choices and, therefore, the impact they create. Want to make the world a better place? Green cleaning products and practices are designed to have a less harmful effect on human health and the environment when compared to other cleaning products and practices that serve the same purpose. Promote environmental awareness, become an environmental steward, and participate in creating a brighter future for our children, choose to GO GREEN!

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GROSS! - Hotels have cut back on daily room cleanings, which means many housekeepers remain on call. Because of this, a union that represents hotel service workers is sounding an alarm and saying that nearly 40% of hotel-housekeeping jobs — more than 180,000 — are in danger of being permanently eliminated.

“Every time there’s a crisis, companies try to use it to hurt workers,” Unite Here International President D. Taylor told MarketWatch.

Executives of some of the nation’s biggest hotel chains, including Hilton HLT, -0.77%, Marriott MAR, -0.80% and Hyatt H, -1.27%, have signaled that pandemic-induced changes .. 

More at source: Marketwatch

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