With the holiday season upon us, we’d like to share some links and information for Pet, Food, Home and COVID-19 Safety to keep in mind over the holidays

Pet Safety:

Keeping your furry family members safe during the holidays can be a difficult task.

There are the breakable ornaments, potentially dangerous plants, presents with bows and ribbons, lights that can be chewed—and who could forget the Christmas tree?

https://www.avma.org/public/PetCare/Pages/7-holiday-safety-tips.aspx

https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/general-pet-care/holiday-safety-tips

Food Safety:

Feasting with family and friends is part of many holiday celebrations, but remember to limit this to just your immediate household this year.

Follow these simple tips to keep safe from food poisoning, or foodborne illness, during the holidays.

https://www.cdc.gov/features/holidayfoodsafety/index.html

Home Safety:

1. Inspect electrical decorations for damage before use. 
   Cracked or damaged sockets, loose or bare wires, and loose connections may cause a serious shock or start a fire.
2. Do not overload electrical outlets. 
   Overloaded electrical outlets and faulty wires are a common cause of holiday fires. Avoid overloading outlets and plug only one high-wattage into each outlet at a time.
3. Never connect more than three strings of incandescent lights. 
   More than three strands may not only blow a fuse but can also cause a fire.
4. Keep trees fresh by watering daily.
   Dry trees are a serious fire hazard.
5. Use battery-operated candles. 
   Candles start almost half of home decoration fires (NFPA).
6. Keep combustibles at least three feet from heat sources. 
   A heat source that was too close to the decoration was a factor in half of the home fires that began with decorations (NFPA).
7. Protect cords from damage. 
   To avoid shock or fire hazards, cords should never be pinched by furniture, forced into small spaces such as doors and windows, placed under rugs, located near heat sources, or attached by nails or staples.
8. Check decorations for certification labels.
   Decorations not bearing a label from an independent testing laboratory such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Canadian Standards Association (CSA), or Intertek (ETL) have not been tested for safety and could be hazardous.
9. Stay in the kitchen when something is cooking. 
   Unattended cooking equipment is the leading cause of home cooking fires (NFPA).
10. Turn off, unplug, and extinguish all decorations when going to sleep or leaving the house. 
    Unattended candles are the cause of one in five home candle fires. Half of home fire deaths occur between the hours of 11 pm and 7 am (NFPA).

COVID-19 Safety:

The COVID-19 pandemic has been stressful and isolating for many people. Gatherings during the upcoming holidays can be an opportunity to reconnect with family and friends. This holiday season, consider how your holiday plans can be modified to reduce the spread of COVID-19 to keep your friends, families, and communities healthy and safe.

Celebrating virtually or with members of your own household (who are consistently taking measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19) poses the lowest risk for spread. Your household is anyone who currently lives and shares common spaces in your housing unit (such as your house or apartment). This can include family members, as well as roommates or people who are unrelated to you. People who do not currently live in your housing unit, such as college students who are returning home from school for the holidays, should be considered part of different households. In-person gatherings that bring together family members or friends from different households, including college students returning home, pose varying levels of risk.

You can find more information here at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/holidays.html.