Summary The Ontario Workers Health & Safety Training Centre provides training on Indoor Air Quality. It’s valuable training for Joint Health and Safety Committee members to provide them on background to better understand how to go about gathering and analyzing information on indoor air in the workplace. The training covers common issues, limitations, and responsibilities. (preview here) Given the importance of […]
It's Oct 8, 2021. Last week I heard from my Vice Dean of the plan to go back to in-person teaching in January, 2022.[1] I believe that this is potentially a premature decision as York University appears to have ignored deficiencies in its measures to fight COVID. These include a vaccination documentation system that may […]
The CS Viamonde school board provided a response about the status of ventilation and air filtering at the La Mosaïque elementary school in the east end of Toronto on August 24, 2021. The letter is included at the bottom of this blog post Executive Summary Air filtering is vital to keep our kids safe in […]
Executive Summary The current portable air filter setup at CS Viamonde’s La Mosaïque (LAMO) [Viamonde is the French public school board in Toronto; LAMO is its largest elementary school] does not meet the minimum set of recommendations based on the latest scientific and engineering results related to the mainly aerosol nature of COVID19. Children in […]
York University hides a lot of health and safety documents behind the Passport York wall. The "YU-Link" set of pages was introduced about ten years ago and, in the process, many documents that were previously accessible are now locked away and hard to obtain. In other words, this means that many important documents cannot be […]
If you feel that it's too hot or too cold in your office or classroom, you wouldn't expect your employer to say "Hey! You can't bring a thermometer into the classroom to measure temperature. You need expert training to read and set up that thermometer." Of course not. That's ridiculous. And the same goes for […]
September is coming. And with it, more COVID. That’s the truth of it. Universities, colleges, public schools and daycares will feel the impact of the next crop of COVID variants one student and one employee at a time. The “back to normal” story we were fed was a lie. It was convenient. It was popular. It felt good. But it was […]
[March 20, 2022 update] A version of the N95 motion was brought before YorkU Senate in January 2022 by Senator Patrick Phillips. It appears to have passed but has not led to subsidized distribution of N95s on campus. [Feb 2, 2022 update] The first motion (Recommendation for N95s) resulted in a recommendation email to all […]
[Updates: Dec 23, 2021; Jan 31, 2022 ; Feb 16, 2022 ; March 17; 2022; April 28, 2022] This page is for general information on tools to help us fight COVID. I'll focus primarily on respirators and air quality here and less on vaccines: Masks and Respirators section Air Quality Measurement (CO2, etc.) section HEPA […]
I'm submitting the following four motions to my department's monthly meeting to see if we can set ourselves up for a safer return to campus. There are four motions: A recommendation for wearing N95 Funding for N95s A request for CO2 sensors A request for portable air purifiers (HEPA) Feel free to reuse and/or adapt, […]