A 79-year-old person who tested positive for Covid-19 has died in Monaco, becoming the 11th victim since the pandemic began and the eighth person in the Principality to succumb to the virus within a month.
The government reported that 17 new coronavirus cases were recorded on Thursday 28th January, bringing the total to 1,140. The Princess Grace Hospital Centre is currently caring for 56 patients: 47 including 30 residents, while nine people are in intensive care, two of whom are residents.
Within the space of 24 hours, Monaco has recorded another victim of Covid-19, this time a 79-year-old resident. It marks the 11th death related to the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and the eighth since the start of 2021.
Meanwhile, 142 people with mild Covid symptoms are being cared for by the Home Monitoring Centre, and an additional 18 recoveries brings the total to 1,198.
Skipper of the Seaexplorer-Yacht Club de Monaco Boris Herrmann has made a fine fourth place finish in the Vendée Globe, a gruelling solo round-the-world race. But it could have been better if not for a freak accident with a fishing ship that left him limping back to port.
Up until the very end, Boris Herrmann had a shot at winning the Vendée Globe, a race that started back on 8th November. But the fates saw otherwise. Herrmann, who with a race time of 80 days, 14 hours, 59 minutes and 45 seconds, came in a solid fourth place, arriving at 11.19am on Thursday. But it wasn’t before a near-disaster in the final hours almost took him out of the race completely.
Herrmann was 90 nautical miles from the finish line at Les Sables d’Olonne when he collided with a fishing craft, leaving him unharmed but shaken. The same cannot be said of his boat, which sustained pretty heavy damage including a broken bowspirit, a tear in the foresail, and a damaged wing as well as the starboard shroud
“It was particularly critical that the starboard shroud tore off, the line that secures the mast from falling over,” said his team.
Herrmann worked tirelessly to repair as much of the damage as possible to be able to safely reach port.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this at sea,” said Herrmann, “but the most important thing is that nobody was injured.” He also questioned why his alarm systems did not warn him about the other boat in the area. “Suddenly I saw a wall next to me, the ships got stuck, I heard men calling,” he said.
Photo by Team Malizia
The conclusion of the race has seen plenty of shuffling. Whilst Charlie Dalin of the Apivia was first to cross the finish line, he was awarded second place due to Yannick Bestaven’s time compensation bonus of 10 hours and 15 minutes for his rescue efforts off Cape Horn of fellow sailor Kevin Escoffier, who was forced to abandon ship in a storm earlier in the race.
This did not affect third place finisher Louis Burton on the Bureau Vallee 2, who arrived just before midnight on Wednesday night. Herrmann leapfrogged over Thomas Ruyant on Linked Out, despite his collision, as he too was awarded a time bonus of six hours for his part in Escoffier’s rescue.
This year was unusual in other respects as well. The final approach would normally be jammed with people welcoming the sailors back home after their voyages, but this year was eerily quiet. Covid regulations and curfews disallowed the normal crowds, though the mayor of Les Sables d’Olonne let 300 volunteers be on hand to applaud. The little seaside village also put on a fireworks show, but the early morning timeslot of 5:40am may have been a bit of a rough wake up for some.
Top photo of Boris Herrmann finishing the Vendee Globe by Team Malizia
Geneva closes probe into Rybolovlev's art complaint
Swiss prosecutors have dropped a case brought by Dmitry Rybolovlev, president of the AS Monaco football club, against a top art dealer he accused of swindling him out of hundreds of millions of euros.
The Russian oligarch and Monaco resident has alleged Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier charged him inflated prices on dozens of works he acquired for more than €1.9 billion.
He has brought cases against the dealer in Monaco, Singapore and Switzerland.
Swiss newspaper Le Temps reported Monday that Geneva’s top prosecutor Yves Bertossa had decided to drop the Swiss side of the case, after Rybolovlev lost before a Monaco appeals court in December 2019.
Bertossa’s office told AFP on Tuesday the prosecution had “announced to the parties its intention to close the case”.
It provided no further details, but according to Le Temps, the parties have until 30th January to oppose the closure.
Rybolovlev had commissioned Bouvier to help build up an art collection to rival a small museum, including works by Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, Rodin, Matisse and Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’.
Their relationship soured when Rybolovlev accused Bouvier of overcharging him.
The Russian later sold the da Vinci at auction in 2017 for a record €382 million.
Rybolovlev was meanwhile himself charged with bribery and influence peddling and Monaco’s justice minister was forced to retire over claims he accepted bribes.
He made his fortune in the fertiliser industry after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Forbes business magazine ranks him number 224 on its list of the world’s richest people for 2020 and Forbes Monaco ranks him as the seventh richest resident in Monaco, with a net worth of €5.5 billion.
Meanwhile, Dmitry Rybolovlev is spending around €165 million to transform the small Greek island of Skorpios into a luxury resort.
Rybolovlev brought the 200-acre island off the western coast of Greece from Aristotle Onassis’ granddaughter for $153 million in 2013.
The project will include a spa, villas, vineyard, amphitheatre and an extension of the harbour to accommodate large yachts.
Sergey Chernitsyn, the adviser to the Rybolovlev family, told Insider that Rybolovlev and his family will personally use the resort at times, or rent out the entire complex for a minimum seven-day period for around €1 million a week.
Much has been achieved by RAMOGE over the past two years in its fight against marine pollution in the Mediterranean. Now, Monegasque, French and Italian delegates have come together to set the projects for the years ahead, which include the creation of a new label to promote eco-responsible yachting.
The 53rd meeting of the RAMOGE Commission was held on Tuesday 19th January in a hybrid format, with face-to-face and virtual participation.
It was an opportunity for delegates from the three countries that encompass RAMOGE – Monaco, France and Italy – to assess anti-pollution activities that have been undertaken over the past two years.
Despite the difficulties surrounding the Covid pandemic, RAMOGE was able to pursue a large number of important projects for the preservation of the marine environment.
They were listed as follows: the conservation of emblematic Mediterranean species such corb, grouper, large mother-of-pearl, ferruginous limpet, and cystoseire; monitoring the problems posed by the microscopic algae Ostreopsis; promoting the results of RAMOGE exploration campaigns in deep areas; launching a study for the sustainable management of large-scale leisure and cruising; the creation of a guide for the prevention of marine litter intended for local communities in the RAMOGE zone; maintaning RAMOGEPOL antipollution exercises and OSCAR-MED operations of surveillance against illegal discharges in the Mediterranean; the referral of a proposed ban on paraffin discharges in the Mediterranean to the International Maritime Organisation; and the organisation of the ‘RAMOGE – Man and the Sea’ photographic competition.
After assessing the achievements of the past two years, members of the commission then set the work program for the 2021-2022 biennium.
In addition to the renewal of a large number of the activities already underway, RAMOGE’s new actions are: the creation of a RAMOGE label aimed at promoting eco-responsible yachting; the development of synergies with other sub-regional agreements to fight against marine pollution; and the production of educational kits to raise awareness among high school students about the preservation of deep environments using data and resources collected during RAMOGE exploration campaigns.
The RAMOGE agreement is an environmental protection treaty signed in 1976 between France, Monaco and Italy for the maritime areas of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, the Principality of Monaco and Liguria, designed to prevent and fight against marine pollution.
The geographical area of the agreement initially extended from Saint Raphael to Monaco and Genoa, hence the name RaMoGe – representing the first syllables of the names of these three cities. This area has been enlarged and now extends from Marseille to La Spezia.
At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, President of the Commission Giuseppe Italiano handed over the presidency to Isabelle Rosabrunetto, Director General of the Department of External Relations and Cooperation, and head of the Monegasque delegation, for the new biennium.
Meanwhile, Tiziana Chieruzzi of the Italian delegation took over the Presidency of the Technical Committee, succeeding Benoît Rodrigues of the French delegation.
Amid a spate of students testing positive for Covid in various Monaco schools, another classroom, this time from Parc School, is facing a 10-day quarantine.
A child from the moyenne section of Parc School tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday, the government said in a statement, adding to the growing list of establishments dealing with micro-outbreaks in the Principality.
The entire class of the infected student was sent home and, as a precautionary measure, were asked to quarantine for a 10-day period. This decision has been the government’s standard response to such incidents and is motivated by the fact that kindergarten aged children are not required to wear masks, nor are they subject to PCR tests.
The parents were made aware of the situation by the school’s administration and any staff who had been in contact with the children of this class will be given a PCR test, in accordance with the government’s health protocol.
It follows the closure of three other maternelle classrooms in recent days – two at Stella School and one at Fontvieille School, as well as one at the Riturnela creche.
The European Union is in a dispute with Swedish-Anglo pharma company AstraZeneca after the drug maker rejected demands that vaccine supplies be diverted from the UK to increase doses being supplied to the continent.
With vaccine supplies not keeping up with demand all over Europe, tensions were bound to run high and now they are reaching fever-pitch, with drug manufacturer AstraZeneca the latest vaccine supplier to reveal that they will not be able to meet contract obligations due to manufacturing glitches.
The EU had been promised 100 million doses by the end of March and are now being told the will only be able to receive 31 million, a 60% cut.
AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot has defended the company saying that they are working “24/7 to fix the very many issues of production of the vaccine”, which were meant to come from a plant in Belgium.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s supply, which is manufactured within the country, has been on target.
Soirot explained the problem stems partly from a delayed decision to sign contracts, putting production two months behind and giving them limited time to iron out any supply issues.
“We’ve also had teething issues like this in the U.K. supply chain. But the U.K. contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So, with the U.K. we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced,” he said.
Europe has lashed back, with the EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides expressing “serious concerns” over the pharma company’s inability to supply the agreed upon doses.
“U.K. factories are part of our advanced purchase agreement and that is why they have to deliver,” Kyriakides said at a press conference, adding that two of the four factories from which AstraZeneca has committed to providing vaccines to the EU are in Britain, Reuters reported.
AstraZeneca defended itself Wednesday, saying in a statement that, “Each supply chain was developed with input and investment from specific countries or international organisations based on the supply agreements, including our agreement with the European Commission. As each supply chain has been set up to meet the needs of a specific agreement, the vaccine produced from any supply chain is dedicated to the relevant countries or regions and makes use of local manufacturing wherever possible.”
This setback comes amid a similar production line problem from the BioNTech Pfizer team, who have been unable to keep up with demand. This has led to French pharma giant Sanofi offering access to its production facilities in Frankfurt to help speed things along. But even this boost won’t help supply until summer.
The EU has had a sluggish start to its vaccination programme, with only 2.3 Covid jabs for every 100 people. This is dismal compared to the US, who have reached 7.8 and the UK which is at 11.4.
The situation is hardly expected to improve as the EU announced Monday that pharmaceutical companies making Covid vaccinations in the bloc would be required to register in advance of exporting doses to third countries.
The supply problem certainly has political underpinnings, as post-Brexit tensions are still running high and there has even been word that, in a tit-for-tat, German Health Minister Jens Spahn made noises on Tuesday that it would block exports of the BioNTech vaccine if supplies on the continent were threatened, a thinly veiled threat to the UK that if they don’t cough up, neither will they.
The German press has also tried to throw doubt on the efficacy of the AstraZeneca jab, but the German government has refuted these claims, as has the company.
Despite all the backbiting, some glimmers of hope remain that a solution will be found. Commissioner Kyriakides and a spokesman for AstraZeneca both described Wednesday’s talks as “constructive”, showing both parties are still willing to work to solve the problem.
All the headlines and highlights from Monaco, direct to you every morning
