A brief period of being almost normal!

I posted some time ago how a pass sanitaire was introduced into France about six months ago allowing unfettered movement only to those who had been double-vaxed, those who could show a negative PCR test less than 72 hours old, or those who had recovered from covid within the last six months. This pass was supposed to be in place until 15 November. Well we all know how that works because - in no particular order the pass was extended until 31 July 2022 (beyond the mandate of the current president????), the PCR test validity was cut back from 72 hours, to 48 hours and now stands at 24 hours and "fully vaccinated" is now taken to mean triple-vaxed (or however many more shots can be inserted into the definition of "fully vaccinated" before this house of cards comes tumbling down)! Those without the pass are not allowed into restaurants, bars, cafés, theatres, gyms, museums, on long distance transport or into hospitals for routine medical appointments! Hold on to that last bit as this is important because of what follows!

I went grocery shopping on Monday and bumped into J, who used to be the sewing teacher about five years ago when I joined sewing club. I think she's 78 years old - in any case, nearer 80 than 70 - and after I'd pulled my mask down so that she recognized me, we got to catching up on how she/we'd been over the past five years. I always liked J as I think she is a kind, gentle soul (who liked to practice her English on me)! Anyway, she remarked that I'd lost weight so I told her I'd not long gotten over covid and had lost my appetite, and that was when she told me she'd recently gotten over covid too, even though she'd been double-vaxed. Turns out she had pretty much the same experience as I did in that, while it wasn't pleasant, it really was no big deal and other than the tiredness, the symptoms were pretty much done and dusted in about four days. Then she told me that she had lost weight, though not because of covid, but because she had been having problems with her oesophagus and the doctors wanted her to go to the hospital in Thonon for more tests. She told me she was afraid it might be cancer as her throat kept closing up - but wanted to avoid her mind going down that rabbit hole if possible, as she was really worried!

Anyway, about a month ago this government, in its wisdom, decided that "fully vaxed" for anyone over 65 would now mean two shots and a booster before 15 January, otherwise the pass sanitaire would be deactivated! So everyone 65 and over was "invited" to get their booster shot and while initially it had to be done no more than six months after the second shot, it was then brought down to no more than five months after the second shot, and has now been brought down to no more than four months after the second shot! Oh, and that "invitation" has now been expanded to include anyone over 18! The last figures I saw showed around 400,000 people over the age of 65 had "politely declined" the government's invitation to get the booster shot since they were told "two and done" and are not at all happy to hear that "two and done" never actually meant that! This third mandatory shot seems to be making a fair few people rethink their stance on this issue, but who knows what they will decide to do in a few weeks' time - I honestly don't know!

Anyhow, back to J. She was telling me she does not want to get the third shot because she was so ill after the second, so I said but "if you've recovered from covid your pass is valid for at least another six months anyway"! Not so, apparently, since the third, booster shot apparently trumps the fact that she has recently recovered from covid! So all that is to say that she cannot go for the tests she needs at the hospital without that booster shot - oh and because the powers that be have now decided that they will no longer accept PCR testing either! Damn those bastards, what is this, Nazi Germany where you have to show a pass to see a doctor? This lady played by the rules and she is still being screwed over by being denied treatment because of decisions made by Pinnochio and his henchmen! At this she started to cry so I leaned over and hugged her - I mean, what else could I do? So now I'm fully expecting the Thought Control Police to be tracking me down via cc-tv for "intimate contact outside my mind control bubble"! Sorry folks, but can you see why I get so mad!!!!

Actually it will be interesting to see what happens with the "recently recovered" (which would include me) and the pass sanitaire! I mentioned before that my neighbours got covid around the same time as I did. The kids (16 and 19) sailed through it, the husband never contracted it, and Isa had pretty much the same experience as I did. I took a parcel in for them the other day and she was saying she was happy that she could put off getting her booster shot now that she'd got the "recently recovered" pass, but since she's in the same situation as J, above, I'll be curious to see how the overlords treat her!

Another lady from sewing club's partner is much older than her and recently contracted covid also (she never got it), so I called to find out how he was doing. She laughed and said after his 10-day self-isolation he had gone off cross-country skiing as he was just fine (thank God)! So there you have it, a group of people who have all recently had covid and, for us anyway, we've all had the same, fairly mild experience (all the others were vaxed, I would add)! I actually don't know whether I had Delta or Omicron, but if it was Omicron hopefully it might prove true that while Omicron is pretty contagious it's much less serious!

In other news André heard that his colleague who died suddenly (age 37) last month had had a heart attack and people are still pretty shaken up about it! What sad and weird times we're living in right!

Since I finally have a pass sanitaire (although for how much longer if they are now changing the rules? - oh what it feels like to be "briefly" normal), I was able to join a few colleagues at a restaurant in Geneva last week. While I was waiting for them to show up a retired Indian colleague came and sat with me and we got chatting about retirement and kids and so on. I had worked for her father-in-law when I first came to Geneva and while he definitely had his issues he was very kind to me and I thought well of him. She was telling me she would like to visit family in India but the situation being what it is there is no way she would even attempt it right now. So I commented that despite a fairly catastrophic start to the pandemic (because of their sheer population size), India seemed to have managed this pandemic well! At that she said that as far as far as she was concerned, Modi (their PM) was an angel, and had it been anyone else they would have been in big trouble! Isn't it nice to hear someone say how their elected politicians seem to have got it right!

So who knows "what sauce they will eat us with next" (that's a French expression). As from January they are going to present a draft law to take the PCR test component out of the pass sanitaire definitively, but goodness knows where that leaves me as a "recently recovered"! I do see people baulking at this third shot though, even more so since the Health Minister is already talking about a fourth!!!! Who knows, maybe this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back! Either that or pushing the jabs on kids (with the attendant pass sanitaire being dependent on it for those over age 11) - that could well do it where people say "no more"! Oh and about 10 minutes ago I just read where the PM was in a vaccination centre set up for children in Le Mans (in the north of France) yesterday and they've just found out that they accidentally administered adult doses to six children while he was there! I tell ya, if I had a bottle of wine to hand right now ...  but I don't, which is probably a good thing!

In an effort to try to cheer myself up, the other night I watched The Greatest Showman on streaming. While it was good (and Hugh Jackman is gorgeous), when I found myself fast-forwarding through the song and dance bits I knew it wasn't really for me. Still, at least I tried right?

And I finally finished the book Wintering (I flit from book to book) and I think I get what she was trying to say. At the very least she went through a depression - if not a breakdown - and the book describes how she "gave herself permission" to practice self-care and lick her wounds, as it turns out during winter. Her basic premise is that animals give themselves permission to hibernate and just take care of themselves during winter so maybe we would do well to follow suit and allow ourselves time to heal and just "be" occasionally! Something to think about in these dark times perhaps!