What is it about?
Five years on from the beginning of the Covid pandemic, we have still not taken the necessary steps to ensure clean, safe indoor air for children and staff in educational settings. Government infection prevention and control guidelines are being ignored and the indoor air quality in most schools and early years settings is below WHO recommended standards. We need to increase understanding across the sector about how staff can protect their own health, and that of the children in their care, by 'monitoring, filtering and ventilating'.
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Why is it important?
Long Covid is ongoing public health crisis which we cannot continue to ignore. The GP Patient Survey 2024 found 3.1 adult had Long Covid and 6.3 million suspected they had it. The 2024 ONS Winter Infection Survey found that over 111,000 children in England and Scotland were suffering with Long Covid, a number which doubled from March 2023- March 2024. We need to take urgent action to provide safe, clean indoor air to reduce transmission of ALL airborne infectious diseases.
Perspectives
I am an advocate for the charity Long Covid Kids and have experienced Long Covid myself. I intend to do all I can to raise awareness about how ways in which we can, and should, be preventing even more people losing their health as a result of contracting repeated Covid infections. Our children deserve to breathe clean, safe air.
Anne Marie McConway
Coventry University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Improving indoor air quality, Early Years Educator, February 2025, Mark Allen Group,
DOI: 10.12968/eyed.2025.24.14.23.
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