Living through a pandemic in the south of France

325 days in Carcassonne since the 1st lockdown in March 2020

▫️ News and titbits

▫️ AUDE The situation is becoming more tense, in particular at the Narbonne hospital centre, where deaths are a daily occurrence, the prefecture of the Aude evokes a “still worrying health situation”.

▫️ VACCINE The first doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca arrive in France this Saturday. “From today, 273,600 doses will be distributed among 117 establishments, including 7 in overseas France,” the Ministry of Health said. They will be intended for “health and medico-social professionals under the age of 65”.

The ministry specifies that 304,800 new doses will be delivered next week.

▫️ Daily and weekly Corona virus statistics are now visible here . I have changed the format to make it more visible and as a result there is a new permanent link.

▫️ For your diary

The NASA Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on February 18th

▫️ Ancillary Notes from a Small Island – The Worcester News had this to report:

This week, I’m including a bit of my own family’s experience of living in Worcester, after a conversation with my mum about wash day in the 1950s and 60s. “I hated wash day on a Monday. It was an all morning job just to do the washing with a boiler,” mum said. “Grandma would wear Granddad’s socks in the winter, with a draught howling under the back door. It used to make me cry; not the cold, but the sight of Grandma in those awful socks!”

We can all empathise with that.

▫️ Music

ANOTHER ONE IN MY TOP 50

“She” is a song written by Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretmer and released by Aznavour as a single in 1974. The song was written in English as a theme tune for the British TV series Seven Faces of Woman.

▫️ Pic of the day

No PC in those days but access to the main frame

▫️ News from across the pond

Fox News Humiliates Itself By Criticizing Biden For Flying On Air Force One

Fox News is trying to gin up outrage over the vaccinated President Biden flying to Delaware on Air Force One.

FoxNews.com wrote:

President Biden is expected to travel to Delaware this weekend, in what will be his first out-of-town trip since taking office, despite warnings from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to avoid travel.

The CDC’s guidance this week said that “travel increases your chance of spreading and getting COVID-19,” and recommended “that you do not travel at this time.”

Fox goes on to later admit in their own story that the CDC guidelines state that people should not travel unless it is two weeks after their second dose of the vaccine.

President Biden had his second dose of the vaccine three weeks ago.

Fox News said nothing on any of its platforms when the unvaccinated former president was running around the country frantically holding superspreader rallies.

The weak attempt at creating outrage toward Biden is embarrassing for Fox News. Without their Trump crutch, FoxNews has seen its ratings plummet to the lowest point in 20 years. Fox is now third in the ratings behind CNN and MSNBC.

Fox News is trying to go back to their old playbook of division and rage to bring the ratings back, but the problem is that Biden isn’t giving them anything to be angry about. The Biden agenda has bipartisan popularity, so Fox Nas been reduced to embarrassing itself by inventing controversy to avoid their looming irrelevancy.

Embracing Donald Trump may have killed Fox News.