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Research shows plastic barriers will not control COVID in classrooms and offices

Brigid Kennedy
Yahoo News
Sat, 21 Aug 2021 14:16 UTC
covid schools education students kids
© PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty ImagesStudent behind plastic barrier.
As reopening schools and offices weigh their options for protecting students and workers from COVID-19, there's one method in particular they might consider kicking to the curb — plastic barriers, reports The New York Times.

Although further research is needed, aerosol experts agree that desk shields are unlikely to help curb the spread of COVID, in some instances perhaps even promoting transmission by changing the air flow in a room, creating "dead zones" of concentrated aerosols, and redirecting the germs to another person, says the Times.

"If there are aerosol particles in the classroom air, those shields around students won't protect them," said Richard Corsi, the incoming dean of engineering at the University of California, Davis. "Depending on the air flow conditions in the room, you can get a downdraft into those little spaces that you're now confined in and cause particles to concentrate in your space." Those built-up particles can then float around the "forest of barriers" and spread beyond one individual desk or cubicle, said Linsey Marr, one of the world's leading experts on viral transmission.

Comment: Also see:

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Target

Taliban 'intensifying' search for Afghans who helped US, says UN document


South China Morning Post
Fri, 20 Aug 2021 05:57 UTC
Taliban patrol
© APTaliban fighters on patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan
The Taliban is intensifying a search for people who worked with US and Nato forces, a confidential United Nations document says, despite the militants vowing no revenge against opponents.

The report - provided by the UN's threat-assessment consultants and seen by AFP - says the group has "priority lists" of individuals it wants to arrest. Most at risk are people who had central roles in the Afghan military, police and intelligence units, according to the document. The Taliban have been conducting "targeted door-to-door visits" of individuals they want to apprehend and their family members, the report says.

It adds that militants are also screening individuals on the way to Kabul airport and have set up checkpoints in major cities, including the capital and Jalalabad.

The document, dated Wednesday, was written by the Norwegian Centre for Global Analyses, an organisation that provides intelligence to UN agencies. The group's executive director Christian Nellemann, said:
"They are targeting the families of those who refuse to give themselves up, and prosecuting and punishing their families 'according to sharia law'. We expect both individuals previously working with Nato/US forces and their allies, alongside with their family members to be exposed to torture and executions. This will further jeopardise western intelligence services, their networks, methods and ability to counter both the Taliban, Isis and other terrorist threats ahead."
The report says the militants are "rapidly recruiting" new informers to collaborate with the Taliban regime and are expanding their lists of targets by contacting mosques and money brokers.
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Camera

Afghanistan: Taliban seized US military biometric devices, report claims


South China Morning Post
Thu, 19 Aug 2021 02:36 UTC
Biometric ID
© File/AFPA US soldier scans the eyes of an Afghan man with an Automated Biometric Identification System in 2011.
Taliban forces have reportedly seized US military biometric devices that can scan irises, fingers, and faces, which could help them identify Afghans who assisted coalition forces.

The devices, known as HIIDE, or Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment, were seized during the Taliban's offensive. The Intercept spoke to current and former US military officials, "all of whom worried that sensitive data they contain could be used by the Taliban".

The devices are mean to connect with Biometrics Automated Toolset (BAT), identification-processing software used by US soldiers to scan for threats. HIIDE can create tracking reports of biometric encounters and warns users if a person being checked is on a watch list. If the Taliban have not already accessed the data, a US Army Special Operations veteran said that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISS), Pakistan's spy agency that has a history of working closely with the Taliban, may provide them with the tools to do so.

Many Afghans who were not evacuated were racing to erase their past online activity.

Boys and men were "frantically going through phones to delete messages they have sent, music they've listened to & pictures they've taken," BBC reporter Sana Safi wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
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Family

China approves three-child policy with sops to encourage couples to have more children


WION
Fri, 20 Aug 2021 01:32 UTC
Chinese children
© AFPChinese children playing tug-a-war in Jiangsu province
China's national legislature on Friday formally endorsed the three-child policy mooted by the ruling Communist Party, in a major policy shift aimed to prevent a steep decline in birth rates in the world's most populous country.

The revised Population and Family Planning Law, which allows Chinese couples to have three children, was passed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC).

In an apparent attempt to address the reluctance of the Chinese couples to have more children due to mounting costs, the amended law has also passed more social and economic support measures to address the concerns. The new law stipulates that the country will take supportive measures, including those in finances, taxes, insurance, education, housing and employment, to reduce families' burdens as well as the cost of raising and educating children, state-run China Daily reported.

The NPC has revised the law to implement the central leadership's decision to cope with new circumstances in social and economic development and promote balanced long-term population growth, the report said.

In May this year, the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) approved a relaxation of its strict two-child policy to allow all couples to have up to three children.
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Video

New HBO documentary 'In the Same Breath' shows how both China and the US used authoritarianism and propaganda to contain Covid

Michael McCaffrey
RT
Sat, 21 Aug 2021 13:18 UTC
Film shot
© IMDB"In the Same Breath"
Despite the administrations in Beijing and Washington having very different world views, Nanfu Wang's fascinating, but flawed, film shows that trusting the government - whether it be communist or democratic - is a fool's errand.

In the Same Breath, which is airing on HBO and HBO Max, chronicles the inept response and often deceptive practices of both the Chinese and US governments in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the power of propaganda to shape perception.

The documentary features some harrowing, horrifying footage from within Wuhan during the height of the Covid outbreak. Scenes of patients gasping for air and dying, and families struggling to decide whether their elderly mother should die in a hospital parking lot waiting for care that will never come or admit death's inevitability back in the comfort of their apartment, are gut-wrenching.

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Clipboard

Survey: 1 in 5 medical researchers reports pressure from funders to change study results

Brian P. Dunleavy
UPI
Wed, 18 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
testtubes
© Anawat Sudchanham/Shutterstock
Nearly one in five public health researchers feels pressured by study funders to delay publication of, or change, findings, a survey published Wednesday by PLOS One found.

In the small survey of 104 researchers in fields such as nutrition, sexual health, physical activity and substance use, 18% of respondents said that they had, on at least one occasion, felt pressured by funders, the data showed.

The affected studies were published between 2007 and 2017, the researchers said.

Because of what the researchers describe as a history of interference from industry funders, such as drug companies in public health research, they expected those leading industry-funded studies to report the most attempted influence, they said.

"But we didn't find any instances of that," study co-author Sam McCrabb said in a press release.

Instead, more respondents reported receiving pressure from government funders seeking to influence research findings than from industry, non-profit funders or public funders, said McCrabb, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Newcastle in Australia.
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NPC

Theatre audience given trigger warnings for Romeo and Juliet

Ryan Merrifield
Mirror, UK
Sat, 21 Aug 2021 17:23 UTC
Globe Theatre
© Getty Images/iStockphoto
A theatre is giving audience members trigger warnings and the number for the Samaritans due to the upsetting themes in Romeo and Juliet.

London's Globe Theatre is also giving those attending the Shakespeare play details of mental health charity Listening Place while alerting them to the suicide, drug use and violence references within the performance.

The venue, on the site of the Bard's original playhouse on Southbank, warns: "This production contains depictions of suicide, moments of violence and references to drug use. It contains gunshot sound effects and the use of stage blood."

The theatre adds: "If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this production of Romeo and Juliet please find details below of organisations offering advice and support."

The modern re-telling of the play, written in the 1590s, runs until October 17.

However, some have moved to criticise the decision to reference the mental health charities.

Veteran theatre actor Christopher Biggins - who has appeared in versions of the iconic play himself - blasted the warnings as "wokeness gone mad".
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Handcuffs

Best of the Web: Sydney anti-lockdown protest organiser Anthony Khallouf sentenced to jail; hundreds of protesters arrested this weekend

Jamie McKinnell
ABC News
Fri, 20 Aug 2021 17:09 UTC
Khallouf
© TwitterAnthony Khallouf travelled from Queensland for tomorrow's protest.
A Victorian man will spend at least three months in jail after he helped organise an anti-lockdown protest for Sydney this weekend.

Anthony Khallouf was arrested at Hornsby Railway Station, in Sydney's north, yesterday afternoon and told officers he was lost.

But authorities were aware the 29-year-old had travelled from Queensland to NSW without a reasonable excuse, in breach of COVID-19 public health orders.

Khallouf had reportedly been staying at a hotel in North Sydney.

Today, in Hornsby Local Court, he pleaded guilty to four counts of not complying with a direction and one count each of encouraging the commission of a crime and making false representations resulting in a police investigation.

Magistrate Robyn Denes sentenced him to eight months in prison with a non-parole period of three months.

He will be released on parole on November 18.

Comment: The protest is happening:







Over 200 protesters have been arrested, 7+ police injured.

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Heart - Black

Russian police break up alleged Satanist coven following confessions of ritual murder


RT
Fri, 20 Aug 2021 15:57 UTC
Andrey Tregubenko and Olga Bolshakova.
© Mash, vk.com/mash.moykaAndrey Tregubenko and Olga Bolshakova.
A ring of occultists implicated in the murder of two young people out in Russia's remote forests has been broken up by investigators, after another pair of its members were detained following a Satanist couple's shock confession.

On Friday, investigators probing the purported ritual killings announced they had taken into custody Tatiana and Alexander Perevozchikov-Khmurykh. The couple will now be charged with murder, and a court will rule on whether they are to be held behind bars while prosecutors prepare the case against them.

The arrests come after a pair of devil-worshippers, Olga Bolshakova and Andrei Tregubenko, confessed earlier this month to murdering two 27-year-old friends who they lured out to the woods in 2016. The gory slayings came as part of a twisted ritual, investigators say, and the bodies were dismembered and cannibalized. Police looking into the case reportedly uncovered human remains out in the forests of Karelia, north of St. Petersburg, days later.
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X

Female Afghan news anchor prevented from working after Taliban takeover


The New Arab
Thu, 19 Aug 2021 15:49 UTC
Talibani u predsjedničkoj palači u Kabulu 15. kolovoza 2021.
An Afghan woman journalist has said she was barred from working at her TV station after the Taliban took control of the country, and pleaded for help in a video posted online.

Wearing a hijab and showing her office card, well-known news anchor Shabnam Dawran said "our lives are under threat" in the clip on social media.

Under the Taliban's regime from 1996 to 2001, women were excluded from public life, girls could not attend school, entertainment was banned and brutal punishments were imposed.

Comment: Also see: Taliban with a human face: Group announces full amnesty in press conference, promises to honor women's rights 'within sharia'

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