We gave Covid 19 the keys to our house 116 days ago, how are things going?

It is 08.00 am on Friday 25 December 2020, one hundred and sixteen days from the start of the school year.

The cheery thing to report

Much as been said, and quite rightly so, about the negative impact of social isolation upon the kids when their primary schools were closed earlier this year. It was the primary reason that Mum and dad allowed child to return to school in September. The reward was to watch her blossoming very quickly as she interacted once more with her school peers for five days each week.

This included making no objection when we signed her up for school lunches and a couple of evenings of afterschool. She said, ‘yes that would be great’ to both ideas – but it wasn’t because of the food (she is very picky, so a waste of good food really), she immediately worked out that it would substantially extend her social time with her pals, so, hey, yes, it would be great.

The not-so-cheery things to report

• Child has developed a daily routine to avoid social isolation – and it’s not just for school!

She has just completed her first week of her Christmas break. Surprisingly, she has been suffering withdrawal symptoms from her school social calendar since day one of the hols! So, mum and dad have been fielding an avalanche of abreaction behaviour, as she tries incessantly to entertain herself in the peace and quiet of her own home, expressed as a chant of ‘I’m really bored, what can I do?’.

Going out for daily fresh air has quickly become a walking tour, checking out all the local playgrounds, and connecting (i.e. locking onto at close quarters!) with a new bunch of unsuspecting kids as they go about their own playground business with their parent minders!

So, for quite a few hours already this first holiday week, Child, obviously desperate to avoid a new bout of social isolation, has shared her space with large numbers of new kids, to the extent that she now has two social networks, her school and ‘her’ playgrounds. In September, Mum and dad had to come to terms with the increased Covid 19 risks from school. Now, they have had to accept that the school break generates a new on-going source of risk.

• Mum and dad’s assessment: The jury remains out about the potential for whether children are likely or unlikely carriers, capable of bringing Covid 19 back home to spread through the family. No definitive statistics have been published in France about the rate of infection in primary schools, so it is impossible to arrive at an evidence-based estimate of the size of the risk. As a default, they continue their daily school related anti-Covid 19 procedures, with no easing up during the holiday period. So far, so good.

The cheery, and the not-so-cheery thing to report

The weather this Christmas week has been unusual, like an early summer – warm and dry – great for the uplifting of the human spirit in the depths of winter. The downside is that it brought everybody, and the joggers, out in droves, all with masks, but all riding roughshod over social distancing, as if deliberately putting two fingers up to all and sundry around them – not a respectful, friendly Christmas gesture at all.

The latest on the‘GRAND INTERNATIONAL PFIZER VACCINE – FEST ’

 The Pfizer vaccine juggernaut rolls on into new territory and new countries, gathering pace. Several new vaccines are on the verge of ‘emergency approval’.

• Yes, there is now a new vaccine tool being used against the virus 
• Yes, it can produce allergic reactions but that’s OK, not a show stopper
• No, you can’t get the vaccine if you have an established allergy type condition
• Yes, we now know that two vaccine doses are about 95% effective in generating an immune response of our antibodies AND our clever T cells
• No, we don’t know how long this immune response is going to last
• No, after vaccination, we cannot all just abandon all the Covid 19 protective procedures
• Yes, after vaccination we all still need to keep wearing masks and maintain social distancing until the experts pronounce that we are really protected, or not, as the case may be

Mum and dad’s assessment: it feels like the vaccine’s first real clinical results are going in the right direction. The three unholy races …. 1. The race to develop the vaccine. 2. The race to get it approved, and 3.  The race to ship it out next day to the clinical frontlines …. are now being pushed off the daily hyper headlines. This degree of urgency has been really unsettling, unhelpful, and AVOIDABLE.

The French situation? – it is now 56 days since lockdown started and 10 days since it was eased so that people could ‘enjoy’ their Christmas AND spread the virus around again

Now here are the latest summary numbers for the national picture for this year, and the daily new Covid 19 cases and deaths in week 8 from the start of lockdown, as at 25 December:

Weekly national summary	Covid 19 cases	Covid 19 deaths
3 Jan to 27 Nov	2,131,376	50,259
3 Jan to 04 Dec	2,217,873	53,779
3 Jan to 11 Dec	2,283,752	56,280
3 Jan to 18 Dec	2,367,648	58,989
3 Jan to 25 Dec	2,484,875	61,892

• Total lockdown new cases: The weekly numbers from weeks 1 to 8 were 313,685 + 295,334 + 186,191 + 96,060 + 73,956 +79,557 + 83,896 + 99,202 = 1,227,881 cases over the 8 week period
• Total lockdown new deaths: the weekly numbers from weeks 1 to 8 were: 2,999 + 3,910 + 4,152 + 3,818 + 3,179 + 2,793 + 2,718 + 2,647 =  26,216 deaths over the 8 week period

Mum and dad’s assessment of the numbers:  The number of new cases and new deaths in France over the last 8 weeks is a stark testimony to the lack of commitment of the ‘men-in-charge’ to make health of its citizens its top priority. Easing the lockdown and giving permission to go out and spend and enjoy the family on Christmas day, it is entirely logical to assume that the resulting human behaviour will simply neutralise all the anticipated benefits of their November lockdown. Since Covid 19 does not take any time off, EVER, we will all enter a new round of Russian roulette next month. 

Their conclusions remain the same as in last week’s blog, namely:

1. We all need to get ready for another surge and yet another lockdown in the new year
2. And DO NOT RELY upon vaccines to save the day or save your life any time soon.

And meanwhile: Today is Christmas day! we are all set to enjoy it the very best we can! It is even more enjoyable when it is all over and we get back to our pseudo-normality. But, in the meanwhile, the day is already rolling out, driven by Child, wound up by the school’s force feeding of the joys of Christmas for the last two weeks of term, all ably aided and abetted and dominated by her material Disneyesque desires. (This totally baffles mum and dad, as Child is totally barred from accessing any of the myriad of indoctrinating, fast moving, mind-numbing, anthropomorphically suffocating commercials or their supposed related programmes). Maybe this is a real downside of socialising with her peers?

Finally, after 116 days of exposure to their primary school, are Mum and Dad still coping?:

We have achieved a satisfactory ‘steady state’ with regard to the Covid 19 risks. We are well able to ‘isolate’ all the frustrations and negative thinking that used to bubble up all the time. And making sure neither Covid 19 or Brexit is referred to during the holiday break has helped as well.

Are we satisfied that we are doing all we possibly can to stay safe and well? No, that is still the core objective. All that happens when we add or amend any of our existing practices is that a new search for a better solution begins. So, yes, that can get really overwhelming at times. We try our best to routinely make sure that the passion is not all consuming of our time and energy, that the hunt has its own ‘steady state’.

So, we repeat our Christmas message of last week and hope that all our readers have been able to achieve the same level of protection, coping mechanisms and reality check about the immediate future, namely:

‘Yes, we have real confidence in our range of protective mechanisms and a high degree of compliance, (despite the boring, mind-numbing daily grind of the precise, repetitive preparation and delivery of a large number of tasks). The satisfaction that it gives enables us to cope very well with all the ups and downs, particularly at this point when we predict that we are all heading for another post-Christmas and New Year downer.

By John Saunders

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World Health Communication Associates (WHCA) & INSPIRIT Creatives UG NGO,
MediaWise and MediaFocusUK

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