Afternoon News Brief:Malls to Reopen Friday with New Filters

Governor Cuomo announced today that malls will be allowed to reopen on Friday July 10^th in regions that are already in phase 4 of the NYS reopening plan provided they have MERV 11 or higher rated air filters in place.  Merv 9-12 are the most commonly used and recommended household filters.  Merv 11 may filter out the.125 micron virus particles but experts warn that a good filtration system won’t help people who are close together or not wearing masks and may not slow the spread at all given how open and high ceilinged malls are to begin with as the virus likely won’t even make it into the system.

Governor Cuomo announced today a deadline for schools to have a reopening plan in place.  The governor said that an announcement about schools will come on July 13^th and that schools will have until July 31^st to submit a plan to the State.  The final decision will be made sometime between August 1 and 7.

Western NY has a problem with feeding its children.  The organization Feeding America estimates that before the pandemic and associated shutdowns nearly 55 thousand children in Western NY were food insecure, meaning that they didn’t know where the next meal would be coming from and the amount of food the children were getting wasn’t enough for them to be active, alert and growing.  During the pandemic that number has grown to nearly 80 thousand.  Food banks and giveaways, mostly at churches, help the situation and help families during these uncertain times.  Feeding America urges people in Western NY to donate to places that are doing these giveaways and support your neighbors.

https://www.feedingamerica.org/

Florida has renewed it’s state of emergency over the rise of covid cases and also renewed the quarantine order for travelers coming from NY, New Jersey and Connecticut to the sunshine state.  Florida has set up checkpoints on major thoroughfares into the state from the tri-state area and will place travelers from the 3 states into a 14 day quarantine.