Day 16 of the 2nd Confinement

During this second period of confinement, the days pass and all look strangely similar. One has the impression of living “Groundhog day”. My routine is always the same and luckily there is a routine that helps keep boredom at bay. The day starts of course with a coffee which is the ideal time to read e-mails, check the positions of the boats in the “Vendée Globe 2020” race, read the headlines of several French, German, English and American newspapers. Armed with all this information, it’s time to go and look on the web for the latest data on the Covid-19 pandemic. Once my relevant Excel files have been updated with this data, a post on the blog is created and links e-mailed around. That’s more or less the first 2 hours of the day gone by. Time for the first coffee break which in my case is a usually a tea break.

I finally found yesterday a couple of official sites which show information on the status of PCR tests in France. It looks like it is only updated on a weekly basis (?) so I shall include in future the data in my weekly post. I am comparing the test data with the population numbers which makes interesting reading. I would like to have comparisons with other countries but am not able yet to find comparable and reliable data.

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A very small and timid positive trend in the past couple of days as far as the Incidence rate and Reproduction rates are concerned.

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✑ Vaccine

I am somewhat concerned with what I read about the forthcoming 1st vaccine:

“The primary criterion chosen by Pfizer and BioNTech to evaluate the efficacy of their vaccine is the reduction of symptoms associated with Covid-19, not transmission. This is regretted by a number of public health researchers, for whom this criterion is unsatisfactory in that, while it protects the vaccinated individual from the onset of symptoms, it does not protect the general population.”

I am not a immunologist but is this what is needed. Additional information is welcome. Anyone?

✑ Music

I have come across this very talented young lady. Here is an extract of her new album which came out on November 6th. Against all expectations, she is local, Marseille actually.

✑ Shocking

As one knows, I am a real fan of these round the world sailing races. As mentioned above I currently check a few times a day the positions of the boats in the very recently started edition of the “Vendée Globe”. One of the boats, which is actually a favorite had to turn back to port for some repairs which I remind you only the skipper is allowed to do, no outside assistance is allowed. But this is not the point. Look at the picture of the boat approaching the port a couple of days ago. More importantly, look at the crowd.

How many deaths will it take before people finally feel concerned? The measures taken by the organizer at the start seem very far away now and this is shocking. At the start of the race a few days ago, no one was allowed to approach the water.

In any case I wish the skipper Jérémie Beyou luck and hope he can repair his boat Charal and rejoin the race. He is a long way off but in a 44.996km race, all is possible.

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✑ Meteo – It looks like a pleasant day ahead.

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No walk as such yesterday but instead a shopping expedition, on foot of course, through town. Loaded with shopping, I reckon the same amount of calories were burnt than during the usual daily walk.