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Month: August 2021

France mandates health passes for certain workers

by: Cassandra Tanti
30/08/2021

As of Monday 30th August, French workers in close contact with the public must now carry health passes as the government continues its controversial strategy to persuade the population to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
The health pass mandate has been extended from the general public to now apply to staff who work face to face with people, such as in restaurants, cinemas or public transport. It will impact at least 1.8 million workers across the country and means that they must show proof of vaccination, a negative Covid test or recovery from the virus in order to access their place of employment.
The 30th August start date for workers comes despite widespread protests across the country. The French government insists that the pass is necessary in order to encourage vaccination uptake and avoid a fourth national lockdown, with the unvaccinated accounting for the majority of Covid-19 patients admitted to hospital.
 
 
 
Photo by Dan Burton on Unsplash
 
 
 

Belgian GP a literal wash out

by: Stephanie Horsman
30/08/2021

The Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday was a complete disaster, marred by torrential rains, long delays and a dogged determination by officials to declare a winner despite no one actually racing.
The winner of this year’s Belgian Grand Prix in Spa, Max Verstappen, was declared after just eight minutes covering only two slow laps and was all done behind the safety car. George Russell was handed second and Lewis Hamilton third.
Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc, who’d had it rough the day before and was being forced to run on a back-up chassis after a practice run crash, almost miraculously placed eighth.
It’s no wonder the drivers and fans alike were up in arms after the victor was declared, with many angry voices heard on both fronts.
Formula 1 rules dictate that two laps must be run in order to say a race had technically taken place, thus meeting obligations to broadcasters and ticketholders. This loophole satisfied the promoters and FIA, but was cold comfort to everyone else involved.
Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali was forced to respond to the 75,000 fans who suffered through the tempest in chilly temperatures and were demanding refunds for the race-that-never-happened. He rather unhelpfully said that he did not support the idea. He did, however, concede that some sort of compensation may be offered by the promoters who handled the ticket sales.
“Unfortunately, the race is not there,” Domenicali told RaceFans.com. “You can pay the ticket and then [it is] what it is. At the end of the day for sure the organiser, together with us, will consider the attention, the maximum attention to the fans, that’s for sure.”
He went on to add, “So, it’s not a problem of laps or not laps, it’s the unfortunate conditions. You need to consider the safety for everyone and that’s very, very important. So, as I said, the first to be disappointed is me because I love racing but there are also conditions which you cannot do it.”
If fans were upset, the pilots were even more so, mostly over the fact that the race was allowed to go ahead in the first place. Lando Norris said, “I can barely see in front of me” and Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi delcared, “Frankly, the conditions are not driveable.”
When the race was red flagged, Daniel Ricciardo said, “This is the right call.”
But the biggest outburst came from Lewis Hamilton, a bit of a sore loser of late, who ranted on Instagram on the behalf of fans, saying “Today was a farce and the only people to lose out are the fans who have paid good money to watch us race. Of course, you can’t do anything about the weather, but we have sophisticated equipment to tell us what’s going on and it was clear the weather wasn’t going to let up.
“We were sent out for one reason and one reason only. Two laps behind the safety car where there is no possibility to gain or lose a place or provide entertainment to fans isn’t racing. We should have just called it quits, not risked the drivers and most importantly refunded the fans who are the heart of the sport.”
No Formula 1 race has ever been cancelled before the start in the sport’s 71-year history. Despite the general consensus that Spa should be the first, F1 officials did just enough to avoid that tag, but in doing so disappointed all and potentially put lives at risk. This is one race that will go down in the history books for all the wrong reasons.
 
 
 
Photo: Scuderia Ferrari Press Office
 
 
 

AS Monaco get first win of the season

by: Stephanie Horsman
30/08/2021

After being eliminated from the Champions League last week, AS Monaco came back fighting against Troyes at Stade de l’Aube, securing their first Ligue 1 victory of the season.
The Red and Whites have finally got their first Ligue 1 win of the season, beating Troyes on the opponent’s home turf two to one. This puts Monaco in 14th place in the standings, and on even footing with Montpellier, Nantes and Strasbourg, who all have the same number of points and win-loss stats.
“We are very happy to bring home this victory and now we will be able to breathe, recover a little and prepare for the matches to come,” said Coach Nico Kovac. “Our ambition is to create a lot of chances and we had some very good ones today. But if you don’t score, if you are not clinical, there is always an opportunity for the opponent to come back into the match. We need to improve our finishing a bit, but I’m very happy with the chances we created for ourselves and with the victory. Above all, I remember that we scored two very good goals. After recovering the ball, we got forward quickly.”
Fans filled the visitor’s box in Troyes, no doubt giving the team a boost, though the match had a rather tame start with the two teams sizing each other up. The first shot on goal came 13 minutes in but was not a success.
No points were scored until late in the first half when, on a beautiful pass from Wissam Ben Yedder, Sofiane Diop, who was just called up to play as a French under-21 international, opened scoring from a close-range shot.
After the halftime break, the men returned from the locker room confident in their one-point lead. This slightly fell apart when, at 51 minutes, Ruben Aguilar’s free kick was deflected into his own goal, evening up the score in a rather nerve-wracking way.
Happily, though, Sofiane Diop was on fire and just a few short minutes later scored his second goal of the game. The rest of the match saw a number of substitutions from both teams, but the score stayed the same, ending in a two to one win for the Red and Whites.
Hopes remain that this win will keep the team riding high for next week’s match against fifth-ranked Olympique de Marseille at Stade Louis II in Monoaco on Sunday.
 
 
 
Monaco Life with AS Monaco press release, photo by AS Monaco
 
 
 
 

Monaco Yacht Summit releases speaker list

by: Stephanie Horsman
30/08/2021

The Monaco Yacht Summit, part of the run-up to the upcoming Monaco Yacht Show, will be featuring big names in the industry who will offer insights on the trends and future of superyachting.
The 2021 Monaco Yacht Summit, set for 21st September, the day prior to the opening of the Monaco Yacht Show, will present speakers who will be “covering the key information that new charter clients or future – and even current – owners need to know before entering the yachting world.”
This year’s summit will be moderated by the Editor-in-Chief of German superyacht magazine Boote Exclusiv, Martin Hager. Hager has serious street cred being a former naval architect with nearly two decades of experience.
The conference will include a business round-up discussing perspectives on trends in the industry, as well as on aspects of chartering, buying, building and operating a superyacht.
Talks in this arena will be given by Jonathan Beckett, CEO of Burgess, on behalf of brokers, Michael Breman, Sales Director of Lürssen and Rose Damen, Managing Director of Damen/Amels representing shipyards, and Aino-Leena Grapin, CEO from Winch Design talking about yacht designs.
There will also be discussions on how to charter boats, including how to choose a broker, what type of superyacht to go for to get the best results, where to be based and what pitfalls to look out for. Margarita Amam, CEO of IMS GmbH, and Charlie Birkett, CEO and Founder of Y.CO, will host talks on these topics.
Additionally, Tim Schommer, Partner/Lawyer from Clyde & Co who are expert lawyers in yachting, Derek Munro – an owners’ representative from Divergent Yachting Management, Daniele Moltedo, Custom Head of Manufacturing and Warranty Department Manager from Benetti Shipyard, and a to be confirmed representative of Oceanco Shipyard will be on hand to talk about new builds.
They will offer practical information on the steps involved to make the process of building from scratch understandable and pain-free.
Finally, a case study from Dutch shipyard Feadship, who built one of the most anticipated world premieres being launched at the 2021 Monaco Yacht Show – the megayacht Viva, will speak about the key stages of construction involved in creating this 94-metre luxury ship.
The Monaco Yacht Summit is exclusively dedicated to owners and participants with a current or future yacht project and participation must be pre-approved. For more info or to be included, email severine@monacoyachtshow.mc
 
 
 

Three quarters of population now vaccinated

by: Cassandra Tanti
28/08/2021

More than 75% of the eligible Monaco population has now received at least one vaccination against Covid-19.
In its weekly communication, the government revealed on Friday that 25,930 residents and citizens over the age of 12 had received their first shot, equivalent to 75.31% of the eligible population. Of those, 21,952 – or 84.66% – had also been double jabbed.
Monaco is almost on a par with France, which, according to the latest government figures, has managed to vaccinate 74.3% of the entire population above the age of 12 with both doses of Covid vaccine.
Despite the inoculations, circulation of the virus remains high in the region, as vaccinated people are still capable of catching and spreading Covid.
The latest data shows that in France on 15th August, the number of positive tests per an unvaccinated population of 100,000 was 437. Meanwhile, the number of positive tests among a vaccinated population was 50.
The Monaco Government does not yet breakdown the number of daily positive cases into the categories of vaccinated or unvaccinated.
Still, the figures show that vaccination is keeping hospitalisations down, with intensive care occupancy in France at 45%. In the holiday region of the French Riviera, which saw a surge of tourists this summer, ICU is at 73%.
Monaco is dealing with a heavy but manageable hospital load. As of Friday 27th August, there were 20 people being treated in the Princess Grace Hospital Centre. Of those, five were in intensive care, two of whom were residents.
 
 
Photo by Government Communication Department
 
 
 

France: "Worst has been avoided" in 4th wave thanks to vaccines

by: Stephanie Horsman
27/08/2021

French Health Minister Olivier Veran says that the “worst has been avoided” in France’s fourth wave of Covid thanks to the vaccination programme, however he warned even those double-jabbed are increasingly becoming infected with the virus. 

During a press conference on Thursday 26th August, Olivier Veran, France’s Health Minister, spoke of the stable and improving health situation in the country, though pointedly singled out the South of France as being in a particularly fragile state.

Since the start of July, the Delta variant has hit the region especially hard. This latest variant is far more contagious than previous ones and has left even those who have been vigilant and double-jabbed testing positive and falling ill.

Veran explained that the newest wave affected “young people and rose rapidly”, adding that “It stabilised in August and was concentrated in the most touristic regions and has gradually spread to other regions and vulnerable populations.”

The good news is that circulation of the virus decreased 15% in a single week, but the minister stressed “the fourth wave is not yet behind us”, though the pressures of the pandemic are on the decline. The bad news is that no one is yet sure how the start of the new school year and return from holidays will affect numbers in the coming weeks.

With over 11,000 people in hospital and 2,200 in intensive care in France, the Minister makes clear that the majority of these cases were not jabbed, thus leading him to call the fourth wave “the epidemic of the unvaccinated”. 

“Many people in the public mistakenly believe the vaccine to be a magic potion that eradicates the virus completely, but in fact, the jab has done what it was intended to do by lessening the severity of the disease in most, saving lives and allowing those infected to get well sooner. If we had not been able to count on a vaccine, the fourth wave would have been the worst wave we have known,” said Veran.

So far, 48 million people have been vaccinated, coming close to the goal of 50 million by early September, though two million vulnerable and elderly people still remain unvaccinated and are the country’s biggest concern.

Meanwhile, Veran announced that the health pass could be extended past 15th November “if Covid does not disappear from our lives” by the deadline set by law, acknowledging that it would need the government to reconvene on the topic. “This pass cannot be extended beyond 15th November. We would need a new law, which would be debated again in Parliament. I am not saying that it cannot happen, it could happen if Covid does not disappear from our lives in the next three months.”

He noted that “the last of the reluctance is falling in the face of the success of the health pass” which, along with a “system of effective tests and massive vaccination of the French made it possible to go through the summer without confinement despite a wave of highly contagious variant.”

Obligatory since the 21st of July in some places, the pass was extended on 9th August and is necessary to access hospitals, bars, restaurants, and large shopping centres. From Monday, the employees of these facilities must also have the pass or face losing their jobs.

 
 
 
Photo by Clovis Wood Photography on Unsplash