Are Face Shields More Effective Than Face Masks?

Are Face Shields More Effective Than Face Masks?


But what about airflow — and just how airtight are they?

“For any mask or extravagant filter, just one point we will need to continue to keep in brain is how perfectly they suit, tightly, to the deal with,” stated Chenyu Sun, an internist at Saint Joseph Hospital in Chicago who recently co-authored a study on experience mask efficacy.

Dr. Sunlight reported health treatment employees generally get specifically fitted for N95 masks, and the a single-dimensions-suits-all technique of stores is troubling. So is the absence of assistance for proper use.

“Inside out, upside down, probably even fewer men and women know how to choose masks off thoroughly devoid of contamination. This also applies to these devices,” explained Dr. Sunshine, who extra that sporting doomsday gear could have unintended psychological penalties. “Will the common public seriously take these? Now, even for regular masks, there is a good deal of discussion.”

“People double-just take, but I imagine Canada is really polite so nobody stares way too long,” stated Mr. Al-Qasi, who wears the BioVyzr all over downtown Toronto, where by the corporation is dependent.

Raina MacIntyre, the head of the Kirby Institute’s biosecurity investigation system at the University of New South Wales and the guide author on a the latest confront mask review, warns that if these masks do not “provide a best seal on all get hold of surfaces, unfiltered air will move preferentially by means of the gaps. HEPA filters are fantastic for filtering pathogens, but these devices want to be analyzed for match and filtration.”

She additional: “The purpose for needing a perfect seal is to drive the air via the filter.”

Authentic efficacy, she said, suggests approval by the F.D.A. and the Countrywide Institute for Occupational Protection and Overall health, the agency that regulates this variety of driven air respirator. “The virus is present in aerosols, so these types of a machine will not be protecting.”



Resource hyperlink

Help! I’d Like to Ride the Train. Is it Safe?

Help! I’d Like to Ride the Train. Is it Safe?


I’ve been hesitant to choose a practice in the course of the pandemic due to the fact I have considerations about safety. I dwell in Philadelphia, which suggests that by the time I board, the teach has already picked up new travellers at quite a few other stops. What are rail corporations like Amtrak doing to modify to Covid-19, and what can passengers do to remain wholesome although traveling? Ann

Whilst modern reports from Europe and Asia advise that general public transportation is not a major supply of virus transmission, I understand in which you’re coming from. Trains — enclosed, often crowded areas with strangers — really feel a lot more worrisome than cars these days.

To respond to the 1st element of your issue: In order to preserve employees and travellers safe and sound and spur buyer confidence for the duration of a dip in ridership, rail organizations, both equally regional methods as very well as Amtrak, are undertaking main coronavirus endeavours.

“When the pandemic strike, Amtrak, like all transportation providers, was strike specifically difficult,” explained Steven Predmore, Amtrak’s govt vice president and chief protection officer, in an emailed statement. “We took speedy motion to safeguard the health and safety of our buyers and personnel and cut down potential,” he added.

That “immediate action” by Amtrak and other educate firms generally brings together mandatory masks, social-distancing policies and signage, carry-out-only eating and improved air filtration. It also tends to include some type of improved cleansing — usually a morning or night deep-cleanse paired with regular, en-route cleansing of bogs and other high-call regions on trains and in stations.

But you are appropriate: Transit firms are not extensively disinfecting each individual coach at each and every station, nor are they disinfecting each seat or area in advance of each individual new rider climbs aboard.

Any expectation to the contrary would be unrealistic, claimed Tanjala Purnell, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Wellbeing. “It’s just like when you are at the supermarket: Even when the ideal efforts are manufactured to clean up, as quickly as we appear in we’re currently accomplishing problems to the hard do the job,” she said. “We are not able to go in wondering, ‘They claimed that it was cleaned and spotless, and now here I am.’”

“Our major priority is trying to keep our staff and buyers harmless and we have been major the way by delivering a new conventional of journey,” Mr. Predmore stated. “We have analyzed, analyzed and built improvements to provide a protected vacation experience.”

Amtrak has also partnered with overall health authorities at George Washington College and germ-killing professionals and microbiologists at RB, Lysol’s father or mother business, to support reinforce its cleaning and disinfection protocols.

At particular stations in and all-around Philadelphia, meanwhile, S.E.P.T.A. (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) has enlisted personnel volunteers to serve as “Social Distancing Coaches” who give out totally free masks to riders devoid of them.

Other developments have taken place in the technological know-how sphere. Amtrak just additional a “Capacity Indicator” to its site and application, making it possible for prospects to see, in genuine time, how complete trains are. Individuals quantities, expressed as percentages, dynamically regulate as tickets are marketed.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority — which runs the subways, buses and commuter rails in and all-around New York Metropolis — has introduced a crowding-facts characteristic to TrainTime, an app that tracks genuine-time provider standing it is currently offered for Long Island Rail Road and established to start afterwards this month for Metro-North Railroad. Riders can now see which trains are most likely to be the most (and minimum) crowded, based mostly on the median ridership quantities of the previous seven trips. The company has invested $231.9 million on Covid-19 actions as of mid-September, in accordance to a spokeswoman.

That provides us to the second component of your issue: What’s a anxious rider to do?

Travelers with an ordinary risk tolerance who are not compromised from a health and fitness standpoint can carry out some simple actions on trains, Dr. Purnell said.

“The important is to go in preparing to use the exact same tactics and protocols that you would use even if you knew very little about Amtrak’s new increased basic safety steps,” she explained.

She mentioned that implies carrying encounter masks, wiping down armrests and other surfaces with disinfectant wipes and handwashing (or working with sanitizer) regularly all through the journey.

Dr. Purnell also encouraged utilizing speak to-no cost ticketing and check out-in when it’s out there (like the Amtrak application and the M.T.A.’s eTix application), keeping outside when doable (some train platforms can be achieved without coming into the station), steering obvious of other individuals though boarding and traveling at off-peak hrs. (Off-peak fares are in outcome for all Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road trains, in any case.)

“Even with no Covid, individuals are usually the situations that are a lot more workable anyway,” she explained. “If you have versatility, they’re an even much better choice now.”

As for in which to sit: “There’s no fantastic answer,” Dr. Purnell mentioned. Crew and travellers will appear and go, and you’re guaranteed to be within six ft of anyone outside the house your “quaranteam” at a lot of factors in the course of the ride.

But based on how the automobile is configured, some may well truly feel most comfortable at the end that doesn’t have a lavatory. That way, anyone needing the bathroom will not have to move you to get there. And if you are further-involved about people today brushing against you as they traverse the aisle, go for the window seat.

“Let’s also maintain in intellect that teach operators are also placing them selves at threat to retain our transportation working successfully,” Dr. Purnell claimed. “So when we’re contemplating about doing these matters, it is not only to continue to keep ourselves safe and sound — it’s also to maintain them secure.”



Supply hyperlink

Covid 19 Live Updates - The New York Times

Covid-19 News: Live Updates – The New York Times


“We all desperately want matters to return back again to regular, but that cannot transpire when DeSantis and Trump have no system to get us out of this general public well being disaster,” she reported.

Below the state’s reopening plan, Stage 3 lets for bars and nightclubs to work at entire ability “with confined social distancing protocols.” It was unclear right away how the order would impact Miami-Dade County, the county most difficult-strike by the virus, which has saved bars and nightclubs closed since March. The county’s mayor experienced stated he hoped to allow for some procedure with restrictions this kind of as desk services only the governor’s buy prohibits the closure of any enterprise.

The get also appeared to render mainly toothless other local limitations, this kind of as mask mandates and curfews, by suspending the collection of person fines and other penalties imposed for violating virus-linked restrictions.

Scenarios are down considerably in the state right after a large surge about the summer season. The governor has touted the simple fact that Florida was in a position to arrive down from the spike without imposing a lockdown as proof that shutting down businesses really should not be contemplated to consider to comprise the virus in the potential. Jason Mahon, a spokesman for Florida’s Division of Unexpected emergency Administration, which operates condition-operate tests websites, states the sites have loads of potential but less individuals are coming to get analyzed. Screening is also executed at municipal, federal and private web pages.

As of Thursday, Florida was screening 38 p.c of a screening concentrate on created by researchers at the Harvard World-wide Wellbeing Institute that steps the minimal sum of tests vital to mitigate the disease. The state had a positivity price of 12 p.c for the total range of exams processed over the two-7 days time period ending Thursday, in accordance to knowledge analyzed by The Occasions. Constructive premiums should really be at or below 5 percent for at minimum 14 times just before a point out or place can safely and securely reopen, according to the Globe Well being Corporation.

Crisis area visits connected to the virus peaked in early July and hospitalizations on July 21, Mr. DeSantis stated. On Friday, Florida added extra than 2,800 new cases and 120 new deaths. In overall, the condition has recorded additional than 695,000 conditions and extra than 13,900 deaths, according to a Moments databases.

If a county needs to limit cafe capability between 50 and 100 %, Mr. DeSantis stated, it will want to give justification to the state.



Resource hyperlink

Edith Raymond Locke, Mademoiselle Editor in the 1970s, Dies at 99

Edith Raymond Locke, Mademoiselle Editor in the 1970s, Dies at 99


Herman Laub was fired from his job. Nazis appeared at their condominium door to rifle through their belongings (at a single position confiscating German translations of Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair as “communist literature”) or to power Edith and her mom to carry out humiliating responsibilities, like washing the floor of a Nazi Party office.

Credit…via Katie Aviv

Edith still left Vienna for New York Metropolis in April 1939, arriving on the British ocean liner Aquitania. She was 18, spoke no English and was by yourself. Her mothers and fathers were being not able to get visas to the United States, which preserved stringent quotas for European immigrants they expended the war several years in England.

Edith Laub lived with relatives in Brooklyn, labored in a toothpaste manufacturing facility, amongst other work, and realized English at night school. A secretarial occupation at Harper’s Bazaar journal led to an assistant editor placement at Junior Bazaar, a competitor to Mademoiselle.

Doing work for the Abbott Kimball Enterprise, an promotion agency, she wrote a standard e-newsletter about trend. It was sharp enough to catch the notice of Betsy Blackwell, the editor in chief at Mademoiselle, who employed her in the early 1950s.

Mademoiselle, or Millie, as it was nicknamed, was devoted to manner and elegance but also to literature, publishing the do the job of James Baldwin, William Faulkner, Jane Bowles, Truman Capote and Carson McCullers, among the a lot of other authors.

It was known, also, for its guest editor competitiveness, when college juniors were being invited to edit the magazine’s August situation and were being place up at the Barbizon Lodge, then a household lodge for women. (Sylvia Plath was chosen in 1952, and rendered her darkening summer months there in her novel, “The Bell Jar.”)



Resource hyperlink

Australia's Coronavirus Restrictions Strand Thousands Overseas

Australia’s Coronavirus Restrictions Strand Thousands Overseas


DARWIN, Australia — Alison Richards, a 38-12 months-previous graphic designer, had been dwelling in Britain for five decades when she made a decision to transfer household to Australia. Then she obtained unwell with Covid-19 and lost her work.

“It was an terrible expertise,” stated Ms. Richards, who put in 6 months with out leaving her apartment, other than for the evening she turned so unwell she referred to as an ambulance. “I believed, I’ll just pull myself by means of this and get property.”

She’s continue to ready.

Ms. Richards is among tens of 1000’s of Australians stranded abroad for the reason that of authorities coronavirus limitations that cap the selection of people today allowed on flights into the state. In mid-June, Ms. Richards booked a ticket to Sydney, but she has been bumped 2 times from her flight as a result of the caps.

Australia is 1 of the couple of destinations in the world that is barring citizens from leaving their individual state and restricting the range of those people who can return. The rough restrictions have elevated authorized problems about the appropriate to flexibility of movement, and have been especially distressing for the massive numbers of Australians who convert to journey as a balm versus the tyranny of length from the relaxation of the earth.

“We needed to choose our youngsters out of the Australian bubble,” Daniel Tusia, 40, mentioned of his family’s final decision to vacation internationally for a calendar year. Mr. Tusia finished up paying $14,000 on business enterprise-class tickets to get his wife and their two little ones, a person of whom has distinctive demands, back again to Australia after weeks of trying to get house.

“It hardly ever entered our intellect in advance of this level that Australia would actually bodily and lawfully obstruct you from getting into,” he mentioned.

Scott Morrison, Australia’s key minister, has framed the country’s challenging-line technique as essential to keeping away from the sort of rampant distribute of the virus professional in countries that have vacation limits that are looser or nonexistent, as in the United States.

“As an island continent, management of our borders has been a implies by which we have kept Australians safe,” he wrote in a letter in August sent to these requesting consular aid to return. He acknowledged that the actions have been “frustrating,” but stated they have been needed.

Past week, less than rising force, Mr. Morrison said the caps on travellers coming into the place would be lifted to 6,000 for every week from 4,000. These figures, though, rely on cooperation from the states and their potential to quarantine arrivals, and vacation market experts claimed they nonetheless fell considerably quick of desire.

They encouraged Mr. Morrison to pursue alternate options like enabling people traveling from countries with very low an infection costs to self-isolate, alternatively of mandating quarantine in government-designated amenities. Comparable applications have been productive in Hong Kong, Singapore and Qatar.

Whilst the authorities estimate that there are extra than 35,000 citizens who want to return household, the airline market claims that centered on booking figures, as well as figures from the Australian Bureau of Figures, the quantity is most most likely nearer to 100,000.

In the first 7 days of September, extra than 140 intercontinental flights with about 30,000 seats arrived in Australia, but only about 4,000 were crammed. Generally, business- and to start with-class seats are prioritized, indicating that only some can afford to arrive residence.

Mohammad Khan, who has been stuck in Pakistan with his wife because March, claimed he was pressured to obtain enterprise-course tickets right after 4 of his overall economy tickets have been canceled.

The few could not afford to pay for the flights, but necessary to return to Australia by December to ensure that Mr. Khan’s spouse did not violate her visa necessities. So they bought their auto in Australia. “We are in a depressing situation listed here, jogging out of money and time,” he said by electronic mail.

Emily Costello, 27, who started a career training English in South Korea previous September, mentioned there are just two flights to Australia just before her visa expires, and they are both equally booked up.

She mentioned she could not afford to pay for to return in March, when the pandemic began to escalate and Australia urged its citizens to arrive dwelling. She has considering that finished her deal and has been couch browsing with a colleague though petitioning the Australian federal government for responses.

“I under no circumstances in a million years thought I would be encouraging Australians to leave the place,” reported Sonia Campanaro, a Melbourne immigration attorney.

For people however trapped abroad, repatriation may be up to 6 months absent. Some say they are taking into consideration a course-motion match from the federal govt. Other people have launched petitions and campaigns, such as a person by way of Amnesty Worldwide that asserts that leaving individuals stranded overseas is a breach of their human rights.

While it is genuine that worldwide conventions be certain the correct of folks to return to their nations, the Australian authorities is not technically barring citizens from returning dwelling, even if the airline caps are owning that outcome, law industry experts stated.

Anyone bringing authorized motion from the authorities for stranding them would have to establish that the causes for executing so had been unjustified, they added.

For Ms. Richards, the graphic designer, her frustration at not currently being repatriated, specifically when she adopted govt recommendations to remain in Britain till her disease handed, is constructing.

“I’m truly, actually offended,” she explained. “All individuals persons who say, ‘Oh, you ought to have appear home quicker,’ I say, ‘Oh, would you have preferred me to come property and infected an complete planeload of persons?”

While contending with extensive-expression difficulties of Covid-19, including heart palpitations and brain fog, Ms. Richards has published to several politicians pleading for aid. She is at the moment booked on a flight out of London on Sunday, but is uncertain that it will go ahead, supplied the prior cancellations.

“It’s even now verified, but I retain examining it just about every hour of each working day,” Ms. Richards explained. “Hopefully, I’ll be traveling.”



Resource website link

Covid 19 Live Updates - The New York Times

Covid-19 Live Updates: As Cases Rise, Europe Enters ‘Living-With-the-Virus Phase’


On Tuesday, Connecticut explained travelers from Puerto Rico have been now topic to the limited states procedures, signing up for a listing of dozens of states and Guam. California, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada and Ohio were being eliminated in the weekly update.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York claimed Tuesday that travelers from Puerto Rico were being also essential to quarantine for 14 days. California, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada and Ohio had been taken out from New York’s considerable list of locations to which the quarantine applies. Tourists to New Jersey are also topic to a 14-working day quarantine if coming from a large list of sites, although compliance is voluntary.

Reporting was contributed by Sarah Almukhtar, Matt Apuzzo, Emma Bubola, Emily Cochrane, Shaila Dewan, Nicholas Fandos, Antonella Francini, James Gorman, Rick Gladstone, Jennifer Jett, Isadora Kosofsky, Anemona Hartocollis, Eric Lipton, Salman Masood, Donald G. McNeil Jr., Continuous Méheut, Claire Moses, Eshe Nelson, Norimitsu Onishi, Gaia Pianigiani, Roni Caryn Rabin, Campbell Robertson, Amanda Rosa, Christopher F. Schuetze, Michael D. Shear, Jeanna Smialek, Eileen Sullivan, Derrick Taylor, Glenn Thrush, Maria Varenikova, Sui-Lee Wee, Ceylan Yeginsu and Elaine Yu.





Resource link

Celebrities Plan an ‘Instagram Freeze,’ but Reaction Is Icy

Celebrities Plan an ‘Instagram Freeze,’ but Reaction Is Icy


BERKELEY, Calif. — One particular by 1, stars arrived ahead this 7 days to say they have been sick of the misinformation and loathe speech on Instagram and Fb, its father or mother company. A lot of of them — Kim Kardashian West, Katy Perry, Leonardo DiCaprio — have tens of tens of millions of followers on social media.

Then the stars went further more. They had been not just talking up to protest Fb, they reported, but would choose action, as well. On Wednesday, they explained, they would freeze their Instagram accounts for 24 hours and not write-up anything at all on the photo-sharing website as a type of moratorium towards Fb.

But the shift, which the superstars created in concert with the End Despise for Gain Marketing campaign, a coalition of civil rights companies that had structured an advert boycott of Facebook in July, quickly turned fodder for on line criticism. On Twitter, folks referred to as the superstar Instagram freeze a stunt. “Oh god what a sacrifice” to halt publishing for a day, one user wrote. Yet another posted an eyeroll-like emoji and said, “Way to choose a hazard persons.”

“These stunts are worthless if non permanent and small-lived (which they normally are),” tweeted Jenna Golden, the head of a consulting organization in Washington, mirroring a common sentiment shared throughout Twitter. “If just about anything, they glow a light-weight on the truth that we simply cannot dwell devoid of these platforms considering that everybody always arrives back again (brand names bundled.)”

It was a considerably cry from what the organizers of the Instagram freeze had hoped to achieve. The Prevent Despise for Earnings Campaign — which is made up of civil rights corporations including the Anti-Defamation League and the N.A.A.C.P. — has experienced achievements in excess of the past several months in finding many others to choose motion towards Facebook for its distribution of harmful written content. In July, the marketing campaign persuaded far more than 1,000 of Facebook’s advertisers, like Ben & Jerry’s and Puma, to pause their investing on advertisements on the platform.

In an job interview on Tuesday, Jim Steyer, the main govt of Widespread Sense Media, a nonprofit team that is aspect of the campaign, explained the Instagram freeze was just the initial move in a new spherical of messaging.

Immediately after the 24 several hours of the freeze was around, he stated, superstars these as Sacha Baron Cohen and Demi Lovato would begin submitting instructional messages aimed at young individuals. The messages would advertise democracy and make clear how social media companies unfold disinformation, broadcast detest speech and permit far-suitable teams to form on line.

The freeze “is created to hold up the tension,” Mr. Steyer mentioned. Of Fb and Instagram, he additional, “they are by significantly the worst platforms in phrases of amplifying hate speech, amplifying racist messages and undermining democracy.”

Mr. Steyer explained he anticipated much more celebs, as perfectly as teams and men and women, to hop on board the Instagram freeze as the marketing campaign spreads.

A Facebook spokesman declined to comment.

The freeze effort and hard work began on Monday, when famous people which includes Mr. Baron Cohen and Mark Ruffalo posted that they were aspect of the campaign.

On Tuesday, Ms. Kardashian West joined in.

“I simply cannot sit by and continue to be silent though these platforms go on to make it possible for the spreading of despise, propaganda and misinformation — made by teams to sow division and break up The us aside — only to acquire measures right after men and women are killed,” she tweeted to her 66.7 million followers, urging them to also freeze their Instagram and Fb accounts.

In complete, the campaign explained at least 14 stars ended up using aspect in the social media exertion, which include Jennifer Lawrence, Mr. Ruffalo and Kerry Washington.

In spite of the backlash, some people today were being emboldened by the stars’ bulletins. “I’m in!!” 1 person tweeted in reaction to Mr. Baron Cohen. “Facebook is destroying minds, friendships, families, businesses. The false facts that is being considered by formerly rational people today is destructive outside of perception. It has to stop.”

But much of the relaxation of the reaction was divisive. “If you do not want to assist @Facebook and its subsidiaries you just have to halt using them, full halt,” just one Twitter person wrote to Ms. Kardashian West.

Mr. Steyer explained the Prevent Detest for Revenue marketing campaign was also aimed at Fb staff members to stimulate them to raise the alarm about the company’s procedures.

“You’re commencing to see workers of Fb speaking out and whistle-blowers within just the firm,” he claimed. “You want to search again at your occupation and say ‘I assisted undermine American democracy?’ I hope not.”





Source url

How Gibraltar Became Europe’s Pandemic Wedding Hot Spot

How Gibraltar Became Europe’s Pandemic Wedding Hot Spot


Olivia Windham Stewart, a 34-yr-outdated British human legal rights professional, who married her American lover in Gibraltar’s botanical gardens previous week, echoed that dedication. “It’s been these a discouraging and disappointing yr, possessing to sluggish down all our everyday living ideas, so it was such a large aid when we observed Gibraltar and understood that there was a location where by we could actually get married,” she explained.

All through the working day, couples line up outdoors Gibraltar’s Civil Standing and Registration Workplace, ready in anticipation for their ceremony, which usually takes position in a drab area, brightened up by a youthful portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, and ordinarily lasts all over 15 minutes.

Afterward, couples stand in entrance of the building’s blue shutters and pose for photos, some carrying complete wedding apparel, finish with bridal veil and pocket sq., other individuals in summer attire and slacks.

Just one merchandise of apparel is mandatory for the ceremony: a face masking (even all through the 1st kiss).

The bizarre situations convey couples from all in excess of the entire world collectively and on a the latest weekend, right after their ceremonies, several of them joined locals and visitors at the Ocean Village Marina, a well-liked ingesting location on the harbor, and celebrated in the bustling eating places and bars with Champagne and live music all those sitting down outside at the bars and places to eat primarily did not wear masks.

Amanda Durocher, an American instructor, married her British fiancé on a brief trip to Gibraltar in August.

Emotionally, she stated, the course of action experienced been draining. “For us, top up to it was tremendous anxious and then it was a reduction,” she explained. “And now we just feel so overjoyed by knowing that we have some more control over our life.”

Still, like other brides who traveled with their partners to Gibraltar on your own, Ms. Durocher uncovered factors of the method surreal and lonely.



Resource hyperlink

5-tips-to-lock-t…out-of-your-home/ ‎

5 Tips to Lock Thieves Out of Your Home

5 Tips to Lock Thieves Out of Your Home

Your home is your sanctuary – portes asfaleias – and it makes sense to want to keep your belongings safe, whether you are inside it or away from it. The security of our home is very important as it concerns not only our property, but also our lives. There are thefts in homes and shops and businesses and we will talk about them below. Bad lies , as much as we think all people are good, there are bad ones among us.

There are those who, if they do not have or want something, will not hesitate to reach out and take it. So there are generally two types of thieves, those who spontaneously decide to steal a house because they believe it has money or some valuables inside and those who simply make a living by stealing. It goes without saying that both categories of thieves prefer houses that are not well guarded.

The truth is that a home can never be completely and utterly safe from theft and burglary. But there are ways to make your home “less attractive” to thieves. There are ways to stop a robbery before it even happens. So let’s look at some tips to help you achieve this.

Τip # 1: Always lock your doors and windows!

The above advice may seem obvious to you, however, if you ask a police officer how burglars enter homes, they will answer that they usually book through an unlocked door or window. As a matter of fact, according to a large survey, 34% of burglars in the US enter homes through unlocked front doors, while 23% enter through unlocked windows.

No matter how safe you think your area or neighborhood is, you should always lock your doors and windows, even when you are indoors. By leaving your home unlocked, you are essentially inviting burglars and other intruders to “visit”.

Tip # 2: Install security locks

Locking doors and windows may be enough to keep “occasional” thieves away from your home, but it may not be enough for the more experienced or “professional”, as they know how to break locks quickly and easily. . For your greater and better security, it is a good idea to install security locks on your doors and windows.

For even greater security, you can also install folding railings on doors and windows. This not only prevents burglars from accessing them, but also prevents them from just breaking down a window and booking the house for a quick “visit” during which they will grab the most valuable things they find in front of them (usually these are wallets, mobile phones and laptops). In alfinodoor.gr you will find a variety of security doors in great prices!

Tip # 3: Keep your lights on

Another very important burglary prevention tip that is almost self-evident. Why should your house always be lit in some way? But because thieves hate the light. Why do we say that? Put yourself in the shoes of a burglar for a while. If you were to rob a house, would you prefer one that is well lit, thus allowing all passers-by to see your burglary efforts, or a dark one in which your entry attempts will be obscured by darkness and shadows?

For your best safety, you can also invest in lights that work with motion detectors. This will not only catch the thieves by surprise, but if some of your neighbors know that you are missing, then seeing the light they will immediately understand that something is wrong with your house.

Tip # 4: Get a dog

Dogs, regardless of size and breed, act as a deterrent to thieves. The reason for this is the fact that dogs bark and generally make a lot of noise when someone they do not know and do not trust tries to enter their space.

Most burglars are cowards. They are just desperate people and want to get in and out of a house easily and quickly, taking as few risks as possible. Nobody wants to be in jail. Therefore, barking at a dog is usually enough to make them want to stay away from home, especially if they know the barking dog is big and wild.

If your dog is big, then it is good to “advertise” his presence with signs that will say “watch out dog”. So not only will thieves know that there is a dog in your home that can attack them if they try to get in, but you will also be legally protected in the event that someone tries to get in and your dog bites or injures them.

Tip # 5: Set an alarm

Alarms are very important, if not absolutely necessary to prevent burglary in both homes and businesses. The alarm siren can not only scare a thief trying to break into the house, but will also alert neighbors to your possible burglary. In addition, it does not allow thieves to literally catch you asleep, since especially in summer, thieves make quick “snouts” when the owners are inside the house, but they sleep in good weather.

It goes without saying that your alarm should be visible and that you should stick signs in prominent places outside your home that will say that the space is guarded by an alarm. Many times, the presence of an alarm system is enough to keep the so-called “opportunistic” thieves away.

Make the first step by installing a security door to keep burglars away!

Read more about security doors:

Covid 19 Live Updates - The New York Times

Covid 19 Live Updates – The New York Times


Northeastern ousts 11 students for violating safety protocols, and keeps their $36,500 tuition.

In one of the harshest punishments imposed to date against students for violations of coronavirus safety protocols, Northeastern University dismissed 11 first-year students this week and declined to refund their $36,500 tuition after they were discovered crowded into a room at a Boston hotel serving as a temporary dormitory.

About 800 students are staying in two-person rooms at the hotel, the Westin, which is less than a mile from Northeastern’s Boston campus.

Two university staff members making rounds on Wednesday evening discovered the gathering, which violated university rules against any “guests, visitors or additional occupants,” the university said in a news release.

In addition, the students were not wearing masks or practicing social distancing, in defiance of university requirements, a university spokeswoman, Renata Nyul, said.

The lockdown in Melbourne, Australia’s second-biggest city, will be extended by two weeks, officials said Sunday, as they try to contain the country’s worst coronavirus outbreak.

The lockdown, which began in early August and had been set to end on Sept. 13, will now last until at least Sept. 28, said Dan Andrews, premier of the state of Victoria. Expert modeling, he said, suggests that easing restrictions too quickly could lead to a new wave of infections and keep the state from reaching its goal of lifting almost all restrictions by the end of the year.

“I want a Christmas that is as close to normal as possible and this is the only way, these steps are the only way, that we will get to that point,” Mr. Andrews said as he unveiled detailed road maps for ending restrictions in Melbourne, the state capital, and the rest of Victoria.

The announcement came a day after about 200 protesters in Melbourne clashed with the police at a “Freedom Day” rally calling for an end to pandemic restrictions. The police arrested 17 protesters and fined more than 160 others — nearly everyone who had flouted the authorities’ instructions to stay home.

Tensions have surged in the fifth week of Victoria’s lockdown, which is one of the strictest in the world. All nonessential businesses are closed. Melburnians are allowed to leave the house only for work, exercise or buying groceries, and travel is restricted to within about three miles of home.

Under the changes Mr. Andrews announced on Sunday, after Sept. 13 the nightly curfew will begin at 9 p.m. instead of 8 p.m., outdoor exercise will be limited to two hours a day instead of one, and people living on their own will be allowed to have one friend or family member in their home whereas currently they can meet only with intimate partners. If the average daily rise in cases falls below 50 by Sept. 28, Melbourne will move on to the next stage of reopening.

Restrictions in the rest of Victoria, which is under a less severe lockdown, will be eased slightly after Sept. 13.

On Sunday, Victoria reported 63 new coronavirus cases and five deaths, all of them linked to nursing homes. Australia, a country of 25 million people, has had a total of more than 26,000 cases and 748 deaths, according to a New York Times database.

In other coronavirus news from around the world:

  • Mexico’s coronavirus czar, Hugo Lopez-Gatell, told reporters on Friday that some states where the virus is surging, including Mexico and Baja California, had run out of death certificates last month. He said that more than a million new ones had been printed and were being distributed to health officials. The country had recorded 66,851 coronavirus deaths as of Saturday, though a Times investigation in the spring found that the government was not reporting hundreds, possibly thousands, of such deaths in Mexico City, the capital.

  • A former prime minister of the Cook Islands, Joseph Williams, has died of Covid-19 in New Zealand, the country’s Health Ministry said on Saturday. He became the 24th person to die of Covid-19 in New Zealand, which has been under lockdown over the past few weeks to get a second small coronavirus outbreak under control. Mr. Williams, 85, was a well-known doctor in Auckland and served briefly as the Cook Islands’ prime minister in 1999.

To counter fears over Trump’s urgency for a vaccine, 5 drug companies plan a joint safety pledge.

The companies must navigate perilous terrain. If they are among the first to bring a successful vaccine to market, they could earn major profits and help rehabilitate the image of an industry battered by rising drug prices.

But if a vaccine turns out to have dangerous side effects for some people, the fallout could be catastrophic, damaging their corporate reputations, putting their broader portfolio of products at risk and broadly undermining trust in vaccines, one of the great public health advances in human history.

In a thread on Twitter, Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, reviewed the troubling trends, calling the current level of infections “a bit of a disaster” given that a fall surge is to be expected just as the flu season sets in.

The top-seeded women’s doubles team at the United States Open tennis tournament was forced to withdraw from the event this weekend as the rules for players exposed to the virus changed for the third time in less than a week, and the second time in 24 hours.

The team, Kristina Mladenovic and Timea Babos, withdrew because Ms. Mladenovic had spent time with a player who tested positive, and health officials in Nassau County, where the players’ hotels are located, decided on Friday that allowing the team to play would violate the county’s protocols. Ms. Mladenovic had been participating in the tournament all week after being exposed to the virus, but she was now expected to quarantine at the hotel.

The team’s Saturday match was removed from the schedule, even though the day before a match that included another player who had been exposed to the virus was allowed to take place, albeit after a delay of about two and a half hours to consider the rule change.

“This probably cost us a Grand Slam,” Michael Joyce, Ms. Babos’s coach, said of the forced withdrawal of a pair that had already won three major doubles titles together — the 2018 and 2020 Australian Open and the 2019 French Open.

Two days before the tournament began, Benoît Paire of France tested positive for the coronavirus. Mr. Paire was removed from play, but rules about the people in contact with him shifted over time.

Electronic contact tracing revealed that Mr. Paire had been in close contact for an extended period — in a card game at one of the two hotels housing players on Long Island and possibly through other socializing — with seven players, including Ms. Mladenovic, also of France.

The spy service of every major country around the globe is trying to find out what everyone else is up to in developing a vaccine.

China, Russia and Iran have all made attempts to steal research by some of the United States’ top companies and universities, according to U.S. intelligence agents. British intelligence has picked up signals of Russian spying on U.S., Canadian and British research. Washington and NATO have both redoubled efforts to protect the information garnered so far.

In more than four decades of coaching girls’ basketball at Lebanon Catholic High School in southeastern Pennsylvania, Patti Hower had led the team to three state championships and 20 district titles. This year, there were high hopes again.

But then in April, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg announced that the school was permanently closing, citing insurmountable financial stress, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

“We never thought, ‘Hey, we’re never going to get on that court together again as a team,’” said Ms. Hower, 68, who attended the school, like her father and granddaughters.

As schools around the country debate how to reopen safely, a growing number of Catholic schools — already facing declining enrollments and donations from before the pandemic — are shutting down for good.

About 150 Catholic schools have closed, said Kathy Mears, the director of the National Catholic Educational Association, equal to about 2 percent of the 6,183 schools that were up and running last year. The number of closures is at least 50 percent higher this year than in previous years, she said.

As parents and families lost their jobs during the pandemic, many could no longer pay tuition at Catholic schools. And when churches began shutting down to curb the spread of the virus, that also ended a major source of donations — some of which would normally be allotted for parish schools.

Among the best-known Catholic schools shutting its doors is the Institute of Notre Dame, an all-girls facility in Baltimore. Some alumni are fighting to keep the school open, upset that school leaders haven’t pushed harder to avoid closure.

Drena Fertetta, an alumnus who graduated from Notre Dame in 1983, began a group dedicated to reopening the school next year, perhaps at a different site.

“There is just a sisterhood that happens to the girls who go to that school,” Ms. Fertetta said. “It’s not something we’re willing to just walk away from.”

A Maine wedding reception seeded over 100 infections. The three people who died weren’t among the guests.

Three deaths from Covid-19 and 147 infections have been linked to an August indoor wedding reception in north-central Maine, the spokesperson for the state’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Saturday. None of those who died had attended the wedding, according to the C.D.C. spokesperson.

From the wedding in Millinocket, about 70 miles north of Bangor, transmission passed into a prison and a long-term care facility — both of which are more than 100 miles from the wedding venue.

As of Thursday, there were 144 cases associated with the wedding, said Nirav Shah, the director of Maine’s C.D.C. Of those cases, 56 were wedding guests and their second or tertiary contacts, Mr. Shah said at a briefing on Thursday.

A member of the York County jail staff who tested positive for the virus attended the wedding, Dr. Shah said. Now 18 additional staff members, 46 of the jail’s inmates and seven family members of staff have confirmed cases, Dr. Shah said.

The Maplecrest Rehabilitation and Living Center in Madison, about 100 miles away, has also been affected by cases linked to the wedding. A staff member at Maplecrest who is a secondary contact of one of the wedding guests tested positive, and as of Thursday there were 15 more infected individuals at the facility, Dr. Shah said. Eight of the cases are among residents, and seven among the staff.

The state C.D.C. said that about 65 people attended the indoor wedding. Maine has limited indoor gatherings to 50 people, according to the governor’s executive order.

“Outbreaks are not isolated events,” Dr. Shah said. “One outbreak can quickly lead to several more outbreaks, especially in a close geographic area.”

How the virus has devastated India, which now has over four million reported cases.

Not so long ago, before the coronavirus, India’s future looked entirely different.

It had a sizzling economy that was lifting millions out of poverty. It aimed to give its people a middle-class lifestyle, update its woefully vintage military and become a regional political and economic superpower that could rival China, Asia’s biggest success story.

But the economic devastation caused by the pandemic is imperiling many of India’s aspirations. The country’s economy has shrunk faster than any other major nation’s. As many as 200 million people could slip back into poverty, according to some estimates. Many of its normally vibrant streets are empty, with people too frightened of the outbreak to venture far.

Much of this damage was caused by a lockdown imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that experts now say was both too tight and too porous, both hurting the economy and spreading the virus. India now has the fastest-growing coronavirus outbreak, with more than 80,000 new infections reported each day. The country has now topped four million confirmed cases.

A sense of malaise is creeping over the nation. Its economic growth was slowing even before the pandemic. Social divisions are widening. Anti-Muslim feelings are on the rise, partly because of a malicious social media campaign that falsely blamed Muslims for spreading the virus. China is increasingly muscling into Indian territory.

Scholars use many of the same words when contemplating India today: Lost. Listless. Wounded. Rudderless. Unjust.

“The engine has been smashed,” said Arundhati Roy, one of India’s pre-eminent writers. “The ability to survive has been smashed. And the pieces are all up in the air. You don’t know where they are going to fall or how they are going to fall.”

Reporting was contributed by Julian E. Barnes, Alan Blinder, Damien Cave, Christopher Clarey, Ron DePasquale, Joe Drape, Sheera Frenkel, Marie Fazio, Matt Futterman, Jeffrey Gettleman, Rick Gladstone, Emma Goldberg, Mike Ives, Jennifer Jett, Andrea Kannapell, Sharon LaFraniere, Michael Venutolo-Mantovani, Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, Zach Montague, Ben Rothenberg, Katie Thomas, Daisuke Wakabayashi, Noah Weiland, Will Wright and Yan Zhuang.





Source link