Wail of a Tale

08/17/2026

ASHRAE Standard 241 should be the standard in every school in this country.
Standard 241 was the first standard to answer the question schools had been dodging for decades: how much clean air does a room actually need to reduce disease transmission. It sets equivalent clean airflow targets, and it was written for occupancy types including schools.
It is voluntary. It is not building code. It should be.
And here is the part that should stop you. Most schools are not even meeting the code already in place. When researchers assessed every room in Oregon's largest school district against Standard 241 and against the existing ventilation code, only 27 percent of classrooms met the code minimum for outdoor air. Twelve percent were receiving no outdoor air at all.
That code minimum is the floor. It was never written to stop disease transmission. And most classrooms are below it.
So do not ask whether the air is okay. Ask:
How many air changes per hour in my child's classroom?
What is the filter rating?
Does this district operate to ASHRAE Standard 241?
When was any of it last verified?
Make 241 the standard.

Wail of a Tale Productions is a 501(c)(3) building the evidence that moves clean air from a suggestion to a standard. Your gift funds that work and is tax deductible.

Support the work, it is tax deductable: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=HZHB5BZW5RYX8

08/14/2026

A CO2 monitor is a receipt. Air you can measure is air you can fix.

Want the numbers in your hands? Subscribe to our newsletter and we will send you the COVID Mitigation ROI Economic Model, the federal benefit cost analysis of clean air investment, built to OMB Circular A-94 standards on 121 peer reviewed sources.

Take it to your school board. Take it to your state legislator. Take it to your member of Congress.

Subscribe: https://wailofataleproductions.eo.page/flcroi

08/12/2026

08/11/2026

Big news — Wail of a Tale has received an ArtSTART Grant from the Ohio Arts Council! 🎉 We're so grateful for this support and for everything the OAC does to champion arts and culture across Ohio. Thank you for believing in us and helping us keep telling stories that matter.

08/10/2026

You will buy the pencils. You will buy the folders. You will buy the shoes that fit for six weeks.

Here is the one thing on the list you cannot buy: the air in your child's classroom.

Your child will breathe that air for roughly 1,100 hours this school year. It is the single largest environmental exposure of their childhood, and almost no parent has ever been told what is in it.

This year, ask. Clean air is a school supply.

Support the documentary: https://www.documentaries.org/films/the-air-we-share/

08/08/2026

Important note: this is a preprint study currently under review at a scientific journal. It has not yet completed peer review, so the findings should be interpreted with that in mind. That said, the research is methodologically rigorous and worth sharing.

One of the biggest puzzles in long COVID is why it presents so differently from one person to the next. A new study followed 355 people for up to two years, tracking 54 immune biomarkers, and found something striking: despite very different symptoms, most long COVID patients share a common immune signature centered on a molecule called IL-17F.

IL-17F is linked to chronic inflammation and tissue remodelling in the immune system. Its persistent elevation across different symptom patterns (respiratory, chronic pain, and chronic fatigue-like) suggests these may share a common biological driver, even when they look very different on the surface.

The chronic fatigue phenotype showed the most prolonged immune disruption, driven by what researchers describe as self-sustaining tissue remodelling. The sensory phenotype appeared to have different underlying biology.

The researchers believe IL-17F and related pathways could be therapeutic targets, not just for long COVID, but for post-acute infection syndromes more broadly.

08/07/2026

"One thing I have learned over the past years as a nonprofit leader is to go with your gut. Surround yourself with dedicated people who are excited about the work. It makes all the difference."

- Marty Pack, Founder & Creative Producer

08/05/2026

Grateful today for Sammie McFarland, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Long Covid Kids, and their support of "The Air We Share." Documentaries take a village, and we're lucky to have people like Sammie McFarland in ours.
You can be part of the village too: https://www.documentaries.org/films/the-air-we-share/

08/04/2026

Air is a commons. It belongs to no one and to everyone, which means we all share responsibility for it, especially in the classrooms where our kids spend their days. This idea, drawn from the work of David Bollier and Elinor Ostrom, is one of the scholarly pillars behind our documentary in progress, "The Air We Share." Filming is underway with our partners at the Center for Independent Documentary.

07/31/2026

Grateful today for Dr. William Bahnfleth, Prof. of Architectural Engineering Pennsylvania State University, and their support of "The Air We Share." Documentaries take a village, and we're lucky to have people like Dr. Bahnfleth in ours.
You can be part of the village too: https://www.documentaries.org/films/the-air-we-share/