It seems that the NHS has used up all of its stocks of medicines that were brought in to cover Brexit in the fight against the coronavirus. The government is now asking the medicine wholesalers to build up stocks again as they expect problems from the 1st January. Regulations have now been put in place to attempt to mitigate the problems at the Channel ports until the end of October 2021, which could be renewed further. If you drive a lorry in Kent you will have to obtain a permit to do so, that only lasts for 24 hours, stick to approved routes, and if you don't have the correct permit or papers there is a £300 fine waiting for you. Looks as though if you need regular medication that can be kept for a period, then you need to start your own stockpile. According to Le Monde, a paper that is a bit too heavy and serious for my regular daily reading, the UK/USA trade talks have collapsed, and although the USA would love to sell the UK all the medicines it requires, the cost would be way out the reach of the NHS. I wonder why the press in the UK doesn't wish to explain it clearly, just saying that talks with the USA are not going well.
It would appear that a contract for £400,000 was awarded to a company called Faculty to collect and analyse the tweets of UK citizens as part of a coronavirus-related contract. Just what is this all about? Seemingly it is, “topic analysis of social media to understand public perception and emerging issues of concern to HMG arising from the Covid-19 crisis”. This is effectively AI-powered mass political surveillance, and it’s been done in a very secretive way, apparently to inform policy. The mobile tracking app that has been a total failure was designed to gather and hold data centrally for twenty years. Other countries systems were designed to only act locally and didn't retain information. Cummings has a private company called Dynamic Maps that has paid out £250,000 to Faculty for data. The only business relationship Cummings’ consultancy is known to have had is with Babylon Health, a healthcare startup backed by the health secretary, Matt Hancock. Make of it what you will.
Meanwhile we have all seen images of beaches and popular destinations heaving with people... A second wave looks imminent.. I ask myself, how as a species, we can be so stupid as to do the very thing that will kill a number of us. ??
A very good piece of writing here about the demise of the USA caused by the virus. https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...id-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/
Excellent article.. And a sad indictment on the US.... The sooner they get a half decent leader in place who is willing to play Collaboratively on the world stage the better
The demise of the USA wasn't caused by the virus Frenchie - it was there anyway, but Covid 19 has brutally exposed the fault lines in all societies. The USA has had huge differences in income, and levels of poverty, which are far beyond what we find in Europe - and this is not new under Trump. The fact is that Covid 19 has a much more serious impact on those at the lower end of the social hierarchy, for whom social distancing is much harder and for whom setting up a home office is impossible. Even in Germany this disease is twice as serious for those classified as under the poverty line. The expression 'demise of the USA' presumes that the country was once great but has slipped - how can a country have ever been great which does not, apparently, see massive wealth inequality as a problem and has hundreds of thousands of homeless in its biggest city ? The fact that they have taken it as their God given right to interfere with the internal politics of every country on this planet doesn't make them great either. The sooner we all grow up and realize that the USA has become the biggest war monger on this planet and start to form alternative alliances the better - if it takes Donald Trump to wake us up to exactly what the USA has become then so much the better. We appear to forget that Barack Obama was responsible for killing more innocent people with drone attacks than any other World leader. In fact, of all US presidents since World War 2 only Jimmy Carter didn't have blood on his hands.
What I find worrying is that so many people and so called leaders in the UK wish to attach themselves to the coat tails of America because they see it as a model for how to run the country. As the article explains it is possible to run a different society as witnessed in Scandinavia or Canada, which will not eradicate the haves and the have nots, but generally will provide a far better life for the majority. While the current government continues to hand over vast sums of taxpayers money to their chums, it is the services that make life better that get ravaged. Today the Health Minister, Edward Argar gets sent out to do the interview rounds and defend the performance of Serco who have failed with the test and track system. So who did Edward Argar work for before he became a MP? Serco. The Health Dept were told again and again to use local authority based arrangements. They didn’t listen. This is just one of dozens of examples of how money could have been used to improve a local authority's ability to work for the good of people in the area that they serve, but it has been diverted into the pockets of companies that provide a 2nd rate service at a premium price.
Things going downhill quite quickly in La Belle France I see, Looks like we will defer our trip to our cottage again. Have you noticed much change where you live ? We have friends whose daughter and family live and work in Paris. Apparently, eveyone there (especially the young) carries on as if nothing has happened. Is this true in the quieter parts ?
There really is little difference of new infections between the numbers in France and England. As in the northwest of England there have been spikes in certain places, but overall it is only the tourist areas that have seen a sudden increase here. You can see that all around Europe that as countries have tried to open up their economies, the virus takes hold again. In these rural areas that don't see the crowds everyone is being very responsible. I did my second unofficial poll on Saturday outside the supermarket, and there was just one couple who went in without masks, and Mme noticed them inside speaking English. The last time I noticed any figures Poitiers was said to have a spike. The fact was that they had one patient admitted with the virus, but apart from that one person they had no new admissions for days. I actually feel a lot safer here than I would in England, so I will not be going there.
In my post above I said I felt safer here. Looking at the figures from today shows why. New covid deaths - today's update UK 77 France 17 Italy 10 Belgium 6 Sweden 5 Portugal 3 Netherlands 2 Germany 1 Switzerland 1 Austria 1
If we go to france, one reason would be to spend a few days on ile de Re - s favourite place. however, it is usually overrun with Parisians in August. I wonder if September will be any better. We don't fancy having to quarantine on our return, and I suppose lack of familiarity with things in france - even though we go fro months at a time - makes us reluctant just now. We shall see. It's all very frustrating.
Any tourist areas in France are busy now... But once you hit September it all changes in any case.. So could be safer.. Rural France is very safe IMO... People round here are very relaxed about it.... You were a mask in every public building and everyone is doing it ... And you can sit outside at bars etc... Overall safer than England...
When I could I stopped going to France in August. An hour or more to go a couple of miles along the Med coast road is not fun if the sun is blazing down on you. May or September is when I go away these days, and it is much quieter and often the weather is better unless you like 30°C+ everyday.
Although these figures look pretty bleak for the Uk, the best measure is 'excess deaths'. Oh, we are pretty bad at those too ! Anyway, we'll see what happens in next 2 weeks.
Another example of the outstanding education you could receive at WBGS. please log in to view this image Is he getting confused by samedi et dimanche or after his four days in Spain sábado y domingo?
I carried out my survey for the third time yesterday when in town. Sat outside one of the supermarkets at roughly the same time on a Friday or Saturday I watched the flow of people going in or coming out for 10 minutes. Yesterday there was no one without a mask. 100% compliance with the law. The French are well known to protest if they think that government has got it wrong, yet in this small part of the country everyone seems to have received the message and taken it on board. It is the same message given out in England, but in a different way. Judging by the comments I have read in the UK press the message is not getting through, and a friend who has just returned from a wedding in England was quite horrified at the attitude of restaurants and the people in them. Is the message unclear, or is there an attitude that the virus only attacks others, or a bit of both?
