Day 261 overall & 36th day of the 2nd confinement phase

Content

Dashboards▫️ Pic of the day▫️ Info & News

Food & Drink▫️ Fun bits ▫️ Statistics

The daily Christmas song 🎶 (#20 days left to Xmas 🎄)

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🔹 First week of December is already upon us, 20 days till Xmas. It certainly will not be the happy and joyous occasion it normally is. In our case, it is decided, we shall remain and celebrate alone. We take the confinement quite seriously. The fact that a very good school friend just spent 10 days in an artificial coma brings the whole thing very near. He is actually out of the coma this morning and fairly stable despite the breathing difficulties. Now begins a very long period of rehabilitation.

Although it is clear that we are over the second wave’s peak in France, the number of hospitalisations and intensive care cases is still very high and similar to the situation at mid to end of April which was the peak of the 1st wave.

I am quite doubtfull today that the targets set for December 15th for a further de-confinement step will be reached. At least not as far as the number of daily cases is concerned. I also wonder if it is the reason why the number of daily PCR tests is currently decreasing.

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🔹 Vaccines

Too early to report anything too concrete. At this very moment there is no vaccine which has been released by the EU nor France (UK is already no longer in the EU as far as this is concerned).

Announcements were made by the government during the week with the following headlines.

▫️200.000 Million doses have been reserved. The first vaccines need a booster after a few weeks and a certain reserve has been planned. But which vaccine?

▫️The vaccine will be made available free of charge

▫️The identity of the chosen person in charge of the French vaccination strategy has been revealed and namely Alain Fischer who is an immunologist, professor emeritus at the Collège de France, a doctor at the APHP and a member of the Covid-19 Vaccine Committee.

For his first speech under his new cap, Alain Fischer went back over the three vaccines concerned by the campaign. Starting with the two RNA vaccines developed by the laboratories Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which are more than 90% effective and protect against serious forms of the disease without any complications to date. The difficulty already identified for the launch of the campaign is logistical. These vaccines need to be stored at a very low temperature, below 70 degrees Celsius. The 3rd vaccine is Astra-Zeneca-Oxford.

▫️Timing. Three stages planned

Phase 1

The first to be vaccinated will be elderly people living in a residential establishment for dependent elderly people (Ehpad) or any other collective accommodation such as a retirement home. They are the first victims of the disease since the beginning of the epidemic, and account for a third of deaths.

Also concerned by this first phase of the vaccination strategy, are professionals in Ehpad, long-term care units (USLDs) and health transport, aged 65 and/or with co-morbidity.

This phase 1 will involve one million people.

Phase 2

As the vaccines are delivered, the scope of vaccination will expand. From February to spring, the second phase of vaccination is due to take place, covering 14 million people at risk due to age or chronic diseases. The first people to be targeted are those over 75 years of age, followed by people aged 65 to 74 with co-morbidities and finally other people aged 65 to 74.

Professionals in the health, medico-social and medical transport sectors, with priority being given to those over 50 years of age or presenting a comorbidity, are also concerned by this vaccination phase.

Phase 3

Spring and summer for the remaining and majority of the population.

More to come on the subject

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Dashboards

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This week

Last week

A fortnight ago

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World

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France

Targets for December 15th

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Occitanie

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Aude

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Number of PCR Tests

I reported this data yesterday already but there is no update available currently in the official pages. If something turns up, I shall update during the day.

https://www.cascoronavirus.fr/test-depistage/france

The mumber of tests being carried out, although approaching 100.000 daily at the national level is decreasing as shown on the chart below based on the weekly average data from 19 May to 1 December 2020. This has an obvious impact on the number of daily cases which was 11.221 yesterday. As a reminder, the target for December 15th is to reach less than 5.000 daily cases.

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Pics of the day

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1939 Duesenburg Coupe Simone Midnight Ghost

There are cars and there are cars

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Information, news and tips

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🔹Maximum six at the table for Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

The government recommends a New Year’s Eve dinner with a maximum of six adults at the table. Prime Minister Jean Castex said this week that this number does not include children. “We will have to respect barrier gestures and always ensure that we protect the most fragile, especially our elders,” he added.

🔹 Road conditions

Nothing particular to report on the roads in the Aude departement this morning. As usual the police watch is reinforced at the weekend and this morning mobile radars are located as shown on the Carcassonne and area map.

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🔹 Vendée Globe

Exciting race. Two competitors are now heading for Cape Town for possible repairs but most likely stop the race after damages encountered.

You can follow the race with this link

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Food and drinks

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🔹Christmas Sangria

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Fun bits

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OK folks, it’s time for another burst of humour… (from Paul)

▸ Some interesting signs,,,,,,,

– For Sale sign: Parachute.  Only used once.  Never opened.

– Recently seen outside a bookshop: ‘Post Apocalyptic Fiction has been moved to our Current Affairs section’

– Modern sign: In case of fire, exit the building BEFORE tweeting about it!

– Ancient Wisdom sign: Do not cross this pasture unless you can do it in 9 seconds…because the bull can do it in 10!

▸ A few corny ones ……..

– A chemist walks into a pharmacy and says, “Do you have any acetylsalicylic acid?”
“You mean aspirin?” asked the pharmacist.The chemist replies, “That’s it! I can never remember that word.”

– Paddy decides to take up boxing and goes for the required medical. A few days later the doctor ‘phones and says, “Paddy, you realise you’ve
got sugar diabetes?”
Paddy says, “Nice one Doc, when do I fight him?”

– I can’t stand people who think they’re worse off than everybody else.
My mate had a bad accident where he lost his voice and both legs. Do
you think he makes a song and dance about it?

▸ During lockdown my wife, son and I discussed where we would like to holiday when the borders opened up,but could not decide. Then we purchased a dart board online where the holiday decision could be made based on where the darts landed.
We all tried this out with great excitement and established that our next holiday will be on the floor behind the bar fridge.

▸ Interesting questions ……………

– Do they allow loud laughter in Hawaii? or just a low ha?

– What is something that feels British, but isn’t? – The contents of the British Museum

▸ Checking the menu, a restaurant customer ordered a bowl of vegetable soup. After a couple of spoonfuls, he noticed a little pool of liquid forming under the bowl. He called the waitress over and said, “There’s broth all over the table. I think the bowl is cracked.” The waitress said, “You ordered vegetable soup, didn’t you?” “Yes.”
“Maybe it has a leek in it!”

▸ The last word on rugby…

Two guys in a bar. One says. “Bloody women! 364 days of the year they’re on at us to show our feelings, express emotions, let out the pain. And the one day we show some feelings, we get this….  ” Get over it, it’s only a game!”

▸ Three Old Fellas sitting at the Pub having a drink.
1st says ” My memory is not so good these days. I stopped halfway on the stairs at home and I’m darned if I could remember if I was going up or coming down.”
The 2nd Old Fellow said,  ” Similar thing happens to me, the ole memory is going.”   I was sitting on the edge of the bed, I couldn’t  remember if I was getting up or if I was going to sleep”
The 3rd. Old Fellow said ” Thank God my brain is as sharp as a tack,
Touch Wood ” as he knocked his knuckles on the Bar three times and yelled
” Who’s There?”

– Q. How do you make a swiss roll?

A. Push him down a hill.

– Q. How did the butcher introduce his new girlfriend?

A. Meet Pattie

– Q. What goes black then white, then black then white?

A. A nun rolling down a hill.