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Man living in a tent after partner “gave up” on Covid restrictions

A hyper-vigilant man has resorted to living in a “pressurised” tent in a garage to avoid contracting Covid, after his girlfriend relaxed about restrictions. The Aussie man named Jason, who is a self-proclaimed “Covid education activist” caused a stir online after he posted a photo of his unusual sleeping arrangements. The now-viral post shared by Jason featured a picture of the peculiar tent he claims to be sleeping in, with an air purifier sticking out of the door, igniting a firestorm of reactions on Twitter, ranging from agreeance, to humour, to concern. Despite the media storm, Jason defended his decision to maintain strict pandemic precautions, despite never having contracted Covid-19. “This is my bed in the garage because my partner has dropped precautions. I take precautions 100 per cent of the time. Don’t tell me that this hasn’t upended every f**king second of my life,” Jason declared in his original post, which included the image of his extraordinary sleeping arrangement. Taking his precautions to the next level, Jason also revealed that he has experimented with sleeping in a face mask, but he admitted that he found it uncomfortable and could not sleep properly with it. “I’ve tried to sleep in a mask, and I can’t. I know people sleep in CPAP masks all the time, so it’s possible, but I can’t do it,” he shared on Twitter. Despite the flurry of reactions to Jason’s living arrangement, he did receive some support for his precautionary measures, while some even suggested Jason leave his partner, to which he admitted the thought “had occurred to me”. Another Twitter user commended the tent and air filter idea, considering it a cost-effective and potentially effective solution to avoid contracting Covid. “I like the tent+filter idea. It’s cheap and should be effective,” another agreed. A few people shared that they empathised with Jason, and are also maintaining strict pandemic precautions. One person wrote, “Initially didn’t think much of the pic, but this is infuriating. I spend all my salary in-flo mask, enovid (antiviral nasal spray), no social life, so yes, I take precautions 100 per cent of the time.” “I’m sorry you have to live like this. I no longer see my family since they stopped masking,” another added. However, not everyone empathised with Jason’s living arrangements, saying he was being unrealistic about the future of Covid. “I work in senior living, and in the two years we’ve been open, we’ve lost zero to Covid. Even the (85-year-olds) getting it now are mild cases. Why? They’re boosted, so they don’t panic or sleep in a garage,” one commenter explained. “The vaccine is meant to enable you to live normally without worrying. Covid is endemic, so you will be in the tent for the rest of your life, lol.” posted another. In response to the viral post, one Twitter user humorously remarked, “We’re a few years away from a really good documentary on how this virus broke people’s brains.” Image credits: Getty Images / Twitter

Real Estate

Warning against latest egg-stremely restrictive diet trend

A viral “egg diet” is the latest weight loss trend taking over TikTok as people continue to find ways to drop a few kilos. The #eggdiet has attracted over 68.5 million views, with a lot of people sharing their weight-loss success. Nutritionists warn the egg-stremely restrictive diet is simply unsustainable and just another eggs-ample of why most diets fail. According to TikTok users, the egg diet consists of eating only eggs for every meal, alongside low-carb snacks such as fruit, veggies, and some additional protein. While this diet is capable of boosting your metabolism and burning fat in the short term, it can then slow the metabolism and make it more difficult to lose weight in the future. One TikTok user trying the diet admitted she had broken it, writing, ”I think the last nine days of eating the bare minimum has caught up with me today. The whole day I just felt nauseous.” A diet focused on one food eggs-cludes many healthy food groups that are otherwise beneficial for your body. This can lead to nutritional deficiencies, an unhealthy amount of weight loss, mood changes, muscle weakness, and hair loss. A nutrition eggs-pert from Fitness Volt says most people fail to stick with their diet long enough for it to work sustainably. They make fast progress, but egg-ventually, they fall off the wagon and return to their previous diet plan. "That's why so many of us lose weight only to regain it shortly afterwards, and it seems long-term, sustainable weight loss is rare nowadays," Saini said. "Fortunately, healthy eating doesn't have to be complicated or unpleasant, and weight management doesn't have to take over your life. "You don't even have to give up your favourite foods. However, you will need to quit looking for short-term fixes and adopt healthier long-term habits.” It is clear the #eggdiet is not sustainable and the lack of nutrition is likely to leave your brain scrambled. The idea is a bit of a crack-up, but don’t whisk it. Image credit: TikTok

Body

Tenant “living in hell” with nightmare landlord’s restrictions

A woman claims she was “living in hell” under the regime of a strict landlord just days into her tenancy. The woman, named Mel, says her landlady imposed several unreasonable restrictions two days after she moved in, which involved restricting her access to parts of the house to short windows. Mel paid $1,090 (£595) a month to live in the two-storey South London home, and said that everything started out great in her new home when she moved in. Speaking with <a href="https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/south-london-woman-living-hell-23205354">MyLondon</a>, Mel said her landlady Sheena Shepherd presented her with a set of rules for the home within the first week of her tenancy, stipulating that she would only have access to the kitchen between 9am to 11am and 12pm to 2pm as Shepherd would be running PT sessions from home. If she needed to use the kitchen outside of these hours, she needed to cross reference Shepherd's demanding schedule. The lounge room was also off limits, with access only allowed to reach the kitchen. Mel also wouldn't be able to use the front door to the property between 9am and 5:30pm and was only permitted to work from home in her bedroom. Mel also told MyLondon that she was to "only come down the stairs once a day" in order to avoid disturbing Shepherd while she worked in the lounge, and was banned from having deliveries sent to the house as the doorbell was deemed "too distracting". Elsewhere in the house, Mel claims wardrobes were full of her landlady's "personal stuff," leaving her to keep her own belongings in the loft or shed. The relationship between the two quickly deteriorated, as Shepherd told Mel over WhatsApp, "You pay for a ROOM. If you want full access to the half, pay half the bills too. When you can pay £1,000 you can have equal say! Have some respect and not be so bloody entitled." Despite only having a three-month rental contract, Shepherd continuously tried to get Mel to leave early, but to no avail. The conflict eventually culminated in Shepherd having a party in the residence, where one of her guests verbally abused Mel in the kitchen with the police being called as a result. Tired of the abuse and restrictions at the hands of her landlady, Mel left the home and moved into a hotel, which she asked Shepherd to cover the costs of. The pair are now involved in legal proceedings over what happened during Mel’s tenancy. Image credits: Getty Images / MyLondon

Real Estate

Why smoking shouldn’t give movies an automatic R rating

In an era when <a href="http://www.whitehutchinson.com/blog/2014/01/movie-attendance-continued-its-long-term-decline-in-2013/">cinema attendance</a> is in continual decline, the United States Surgeon General’s <a href="http://http//www.cdc.gov//tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/youth_data/movies/index.htm">proposal</a> that all movies depicting smoking should be rated R is a particular form of silliness. The Surgeon General <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/50th-anniversary/">estimates</a> that giving an R rating to movies with smoking would reduce the number of young smokers in the US by nearly 18% and prevent one million deaths from smoking among children alive today. But these statements are based on <a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001078">questionable assumptions</a> and calculations.<h2>Beyond the cinema</h2>Advocates for R ratings argue two effects. R-rating would dramatically reduce the number of young people who would be exposed to smoking scenes in movies. And it would act as a major disincentive to movie producers to include smoking scenes because R rated movies attract smaller audiences. These producers would thus self-censor smoking scenes after doing the box office maths.But studies purporting to demonstrate the power of smoking scenes to cause smoking already include R-rating movies in their smoking scene exposure assessments. In this 2007 <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/119/5/e1167.long">paper</a>, for example, 40% of the films were R-rated. The same research team has also <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/114/1/149.long">shown</a> that 81% of US adolescents are allowed to watch R-rated movies. If youth who allegedly start smoking because of exposure to smoking in movies are already watching lots of R-rated movies, how would an R-rating reduce such exposure? Moving movies with smoking to R-rating would put the onus on parents to regulate their children’s viewing. Few would disagree with that. But why would parents regulate their children’s viewing more because of concern about smoking than they do now because of concerns about exposure to strong violence and explicit sex in R-rated movies?If the R-rating solution is designed to prevent youth seeing smoking, it may prevent them seeing it in cinemas, but it will not prevent them seeing the newly rated R movies elsewhere with consummate ease, increasingly so as download and i-View markets rapidly expand. It surely cannot be long until proponents of R-rating realise they will need to call for total movie censorship of smoking. If they’re comfortable with that, let them be open about it.But I, for one, am not. And because the call for this proposal has received no serious consideration outside of the US and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_India">India</a> (a nation with a strong history of censorship), I’m certainly not alone. <h2>Art imitating life</h2>As I wrote <a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001078">before</a> in the journal PLOS Medicine, I’m concerned that public health advocates think it’s reasonable for the state to regulate cultural products such as movies, books, art and theatre to further their cause.Film isn’t just about the communication of public health messages to the masses. And children’s moral development and health decision-making is far complex than a response to wholesome role models. Filmmakers depict all sorts of antisocial, unhealthy and even dangerous realities that we might expect in society. That doesn’t mean the behaviour is desirable or that the filmmaker is endorsing the behaviour. In nations such as Australia which ban all forms of tobacco advertising, any evidence of paid tobacco product placement in movie would be a breach of the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/tapa1992314/">Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act 1992</a>. There would be many inside the local film industry who would be appalled if tobacco companies were paying illegally for such scenes to occur. There have been no whistleblowers exposing this here, so any smoking scenes are highly likely to be script and directional judgements.Smoking prevalence in <a href="http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-1-prevalence/1-6-prevalence-of-smoking-secondary-students">Australian children</a> is at an all-time low, as it is in the <a href="http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/press_releases/post/2012_12_19_survey">United States</a>. This has been achieved by the sustained combination of policies and campaigns mostly directed at adults, but to which kids are also exposed. So while smoking in movies has been rising, smoking in kids has been falling.There are many overtly and subtly negative treatments of smoking in movies and television that are probably contributing to the decay of smoking’s former status. This compilation from the globally massively popular Friends TV series is illustrative.If R-rating advocates had their way, no adolescent should ever be exposed to such programs.Image credits: Getty ImagesThis article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-smoking-shouldnt-give-movies-an-automatic-r-rating-30864" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.

Movies

CDC and EU slap restrictions on travel to Australia

As Covid-19 case numbers continue to rise due to the Omicron wave, two major international governing bodies have warned against travelling to Australia. America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the European Union have both identified Australia as a “Covid danger zone”, and warned their residents against travelling Down Under. The EU’s concerns could see Aussie travellers banned from entering Europe or forced into mandatory quarantine when arriving on European soil. Australia joins Canada and Argentina on the EU’s “danger zone”, as European Council officials recommend restrictions not be relaxed for these countries. The new directive means that non-essential travel to Europe from Australia could be banned by individual EU countries, although Cyprus, Greece and Italy have already gone against the ruling. The CDC came to a similar decision about the fate of Aussie travellers, as Australia joined the likes of Israel, Argentina, Egypt, and 18 other countries on a “very high” Covid warning. America’s health protection agency told US residents they should avoid travelling to the “dangerous” countries that feature in the CDC’s “level four: very high risk” list. Australia first banned international tourists at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, but has recently started to relax restrictions as the nation’s leaders are encouraging everyone to “live with the virus”. Image credits: Getty Images

Domestic Travel

COVID travel restrictions have created new borders for migrants who want to visit home

In the early days of the pandemic, many countries closed their borders to stop the spread of COVID-19. International travel has continued to be limited with <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52544307">changing caveats</a>, including “essential” travel only, restrictions on travellers from particular countries and vaccination “passports”. While a necessary public health measure, these restrictions have been especially disruptive to migrant families. For these families, travel is a necessary part of fulfilling <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15350770.2020.1787035">familial obligations</a> and maintaining a sense of “<a href="https://www.lexico.com/definition/familyhood">familyhood</a>” and belonging across borders. These policies present a new layer of “everyday bordering” for transnational families. The term “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038038517702599">everyday bordering</a>” describes how policy and media narratives around migration affect migrants’ everyday lives and define who “belongs” in a nation state. In the UK, these borders amplify the state’s “<a href="https://www.jcwi.org.uk/the-hostile-environment-explained">hostile environment</a>”, the Home Office’s immigration policy, aimed at making it as difficult as possible to stay in the UK without adequate documentation. For migrants, their country of origin represents <a href="https://www.movingpeoplechangingplaces.org/locations/home-and-away.html">home</a> and family. Visiting home is important to many people’s wellbeing and allows migrants to be part of <a href="https://www.expatica.com/living/family/family-rituals-442783/">family traditions</a> and religious and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-09/how-china-s-big-annual-migration-differs-this-year-quicktake">cultural festivals</a>. Travel may also be necessary to fulfil caring obligations for ageing, sick or young relatives. Pandemic aside, the ability to visit home and family has always been constrained by a number of factors, including migration status and travel costs. The impact of these everyday borders on some migrants’ lives has been <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Addressing-the-pain-of-separation-for-refugee-families.pdf">well-documented</a>. The introduction of COVID-19 travel restrictions has inhibited and added costly and complex border checks into the everyday lives of migrants. This is at a time when the need to maintain transnational family caring practices is particularly important. <h2>Everyday borders</h2> Our fieldwork for the study <a href="https://everydaybordering-familiesandsocialcare.group.shef.ac.uk/">“Everyday Bordering in the UK”</a> aims to understand how immigration legislation – including COVID-19 travel restrictions – has impacted social care practitioners and the migrant families they support. Through interviews, diary entries and ethnographic observations, we explored how families from diverse migratory backgrounds experience everyday bordering. While transnational family practices were not our primary focus, our work has revealed the impact of COVID-19 travel restrictions on transnational family life. This was also supported by our researcher’s own travel experiences when visiting family in Italy. Our research participants consistently discussed and wrote about their family members who do not live in the UK and expressed feeling responsible for their care. This demonstrates how important it is for family members to be able to travel in order to provide care. Some expressed remorse at being unable to travel historically, due to restrictive visa conditions or prohibitive flight costs. Interviews and ethnographic observations from online English language classes also reveal the impact of COVID-19 travel restrictions on fulfilling care practices. One couple from Poland –- whom we call Krystyna and Henryk –- now living in the UK, describe the disruption caused by such restrictions. In March 2020, Krystyna was visiting Poland to help her parents with her ageing grandparents, when travel was first inhibited. She was unable to return to her partner in the UK due to flight cancellations. During this time, Henryk described being “depressed” and alone, saying, "My family isn’t here because they are in Poland, so I spent a few days in bed […] it was a very bad experience in my life." While commercial flights were not available at that time, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52098067">chartered flights</a> returned many citizens back to their home countries from work or holiday. But these flights did not take into account those in Krystyna’s position – as a Polish citizen – and their transnational caring responsibilities, which are now divided between two countries. <h2>Essential travel</h2> Now that many countries have reopened their borders for travel, governments and airlines have implemented a series of measures and checks to contain the virus. Examples include <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/coronavirus-response/safe-covid-19-vaccines-europeans/eu-digital-covid-certificate_en">the EU green pass</a>, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/provide-journey-contact-details-before-travel-uk">the UK’s passenger locator form</a>, evidence of testing negative for COVID-19 and compulsory quarantine in hotels. These can be costly and hard to access, as our researcher noted in her own experience, "After not seeing my family for over one year, including my mum with a severe disability, we decided to fly to Italy. For the trip, we needed four tests, costing … £160 per person. Italy required a 48-hour test, and not a postal test. For a person living in London there were more, cheaper options but not for people in rural areas. In Italy, we also had to isolate for five days and get a further green pass to access public spaces." For two participants in the English language class, despite wanting to visit their mothers in Turkey and India, these measures were so costly and “complicated” that they said they “didn’t bother to ask for permission”. They realised it would be too difficult to travel, and they cancelled their plans to visit their families. The global emergency of COVID-19 has presented many challenges for governments, and has emphasised the differing needs of populations, including those who are marginalised. Since the initial peak of the crisis in early 2020, many countries, the UK included, permitted carers to move between different households to provide care. While international travel restrictions are an important feature of public health responses, in the context of this health crises, migrant families’ need to travel should also be recognised. Health-related boarding requirements should, we believe, be removed in a timely manner, but governments can do more to support migrant families in the short term. If we consider differing regulations between countries, the current system is too complex, costly and contradictory. There is a need for international agreements to standardise the documentation required to travel and make processes more streamlined and accessible. Image credits: Getty Images This image originally appeared in <a rel="noopener" href="https://theconversation.com/covid-travel-restrictions-have-created-new-borders-for-migrants-who-want-to-visit-home-171461" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.

Travel Tips

Outrage over photo as lockdown restrictions are eased

A photo of a “disgusting” mess around a bin in a New Zealand park has caused outrage after the government eased lockdown restrictions for COVID-19. Merania Mihaka, a resident of Rotorua on the north island, claims that it only took hours for people to create a mess. "For 5 weeks Papatuanuku was able to heal herself, it takes less than 24 hrs for humans to ruin her again," she wrote, alongside photos of rubbish from fast food restaurants left discarded around public bins, on Facebook. <iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fmerania.mihaka%2Fposts%2F3396723683689151&show_text=true&width=552&height=741&appId" width="552" height="741" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe> Papatuanuka is a Māori term meaning the land or a Mother Earth figure in Māori mythology. Others were angered by the sight. “Obviously these people don't appreciate what they have,” one woman wrote. One man added: “humans are the worst”. “Disgusting alright,” another woman wrote. “How disappointing to see some people just never learn.” The photo was posted just a day after New Zealand moved out of its toughest level of coronavirus restrictions on Tuesday, allowing some non-essential businesses to reopen. "There is no one point in time that this mission ends. We are in the next phase of the battle and we are not done,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern explained. “It’s an ongoing battle.” The level three restrictions, which limit people to local travel and keep malls, pubs, hairdresser and other businesses closed, will last for at least another two weeks. "No one wants a second wave in New Zealand and we must guard against that," Ms Ardern said. "Elimination does not mean zero cases," she said. "It would be an ongoing campaign and zero tolerance for cases."

Travel Trouble

Facebook restricts “Facebook Live” feature following Christchurch attacks

After the horrific Christchurch attacks that saw a lone gunman kill 51 people in two mosques whilst streaming it via Facebook Live, the social media giant has decided to take action. Facebook has said in a <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/05/protecting-live-from-abuse/">statement</a> that it’s introducing a “one-strike” policy for use of Facebook Live. The policy will temporarily restrict access for people who have faced disciplinary action for breaking the company’s rules anywhere on the site. First time offenders will be suspended from using Facebook Live for a set period of time and Facebook is also broadening the range of offences that will qualify for one-strike suspensions. However, Facebook did not specify what offences were eligible for the one-strike policy or how long suspensions will last. “Today we are tightening the rules that apply specifically to Live,” the statement read. “We will now apply a ‘one strike’ policy to Live in connection with a broader range of offenses. From now on, anyone who violates our most serious policies will be restricted from using Live for set periods of time – for example 30 days – starting on their first offense. For instance, someone who shares a link to a statement from a terrorist group with no context will now be immediately blocked from using Live for a set period of time.” A spokeswoman for Facebook pointed out that “it would have not been possible for the shooter to use Live on his account under the new rules”. The company plans to extend the new restrictions to other areas of the site over the coming weeks and it plans to start with preventing the same people from creating ads on Facebook. There are also plans for Facebook to fund research at three universities on techniques to detect manipulated media, which Facebook’s systems still struggle with. This was proven after the attacks as manipulated media was everywhere on the platform. Facebook has said it removed 1.5 million videos globally that contained footage of the attack in the first 24 hours after it occurred. It said in a blog post in late March that it had identified more than 900 different versions of the video.

Technology

How to restrict access to your Facebook page

Do well-meaning friends and family post personal information you just don’t want to share on your Facebook timeline? While it’s always a good idea to speak to the person in question, if it’s not possible there are two ways Facebook helps you tackle this. 1. Stop people from posting to your Facebook timeline If you would like to stop all of your Facebook friends from posting on your timeline, click on the menu drop-down arrow on the top-right of your Facebook page. Click “Settings” and choose “Timeline and Tagging” on the left. Under “Who can post on your timeline?” you can change the option from “Friends” to “Only me”. Now nobody can post on your Facebook timeline. If this option is a bit extreme for you, under “Who can add things to my timeline?” you can choose the option to review posts that friends tag you in before they appear on your timeline. This means that you will have to manually approve posts you're tagged in before they appear on your Facebook. 2.Change who can view your timeline If you’d still like friends and family posting on your Facebook wall, another option is to limit who can view the posts on your Facebook page. Under the same “Timeline and Tagging” menu, go to “Who can see things on my timeline?” The default option is Facebook friends, but you can choose a “Custom” option and include or exclude specific Facebook friends from seeing your posts on your Facebook page. Related links: <a href="/lifestyle/technology/2015/06/dont-miss-facebook-updates/">How to stop missing updates from friends on Facebook</a> <a href="/lifestyle/technology/2015/08/internet-terms-to-know/">The internet terms you should know</a> <a href="/lifestyle/technology/2015/06/stay-safe-on-public-wifi/">How to stay safe on public wifi</a>

Technology

5 tips for travelling with dietary restrictions

Dietary restrictions can make the simple task of preparing a meal a day-to-day inconvenience, and that’s not even when you’re travelling in a foreign country. That being said there’s no reason at all to let dietary restrictions spoil your travel plans. We’re going to look at five tips for travelling with dietary restrictions. Just because you’re on a meal plan, doesn’t mean you can’t have the trip of a lifetime. 1. Research the conditions of your destination It’s crucial you understand what you’re stepping into. Before you jump on your flight, be sure to consult your doctor and travel agent to identify any potential difficulties that come with travelling on a particular diet. With a little bit of planning you should be able to identify any problems and alternatives to help you meet your dietary needs. 2. Learn a bit of the language If there are foods you need to avoid it’s crucial you spot them before your plate comes out, but this can be difficult in foreign countries. Learn to spot words on the menu that may arose suspicion. If you don’t feel confident consider asking an English-speaking staff member. You can also consider purchasing allergy cards that can help you communicate. 3. Cook your own meals It might seem like a simple measure, but in the end of the day the only way you can be truly confident that you know what you’re eating when travelling overseas is by making your own menu. This may be something as simple as choosing accommodation with cooking facilities and being aware of the location of your nearest supermarket. 4. Pack all the medications you need Make sure all the medications you will require for your journey are ready and in your carry-on luggage when you reach your destination. It’s also useful to have another set ready just in case something happens to it. If possible, it’s also a good idea to bring a prescription note from your doctor if it looks like you will require addition medication. Do you have dietary restrictions, and how have these affected your travel plans? Share your stories in the comments below. Related links: <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/travel-tips/2016/05/10-more-travel-scams-to-watch-out-for/">10 more travel scams to watch out for</a> <a href="/travel/travel-tips/2016/05/6-things-you-need-to-know-about-travel-vaccinations/">6 things you need to know about travel vaccinations</a> <a href="/travel/travel-tips/2016/05/10-ways-to-beat-travel-sickness/">10 ways to beat travel sickness</a>

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