Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
Midweek it is.
I have survived several days of online conferencing and workshops. Three down, two to go. Despite the hours spend in the virtual conference and learning environment today turned out to be rather productive. I think I will focus on getting my training slides for the supply chain finance seminar largely done by the end of the week. This will include building a few cases and identifying additional presenters for real life examples. Next week I shall then emerge myself into Sudan if all goes well.
Plans for the birthday BBQ are moving forward. I think we shall be ten people. One of my girlfriends rescinded her rsvp as she feels there is too much of a crowd. And that is perfectly fine. During these strange times we must all do what we are comfortable with.
I am might ask EM’s friend to bring her portable firepit, which would allow us to set up two groups with two couples each and then D. and I are the respective fifth person in each group. The three teens would get the BBQ and as they are all part of our bubble they are free to move inside.
Given the temperatures and not eating around a table I will have a BBQ. I am thinking sausages and pork chops (seeing Instacart delivered 8 when I needed ten) and maybe some steaks. I am considering making bread rolls myself so the sausage, steak, pork would de facto become a sandwich with condiments like ketchup, mayonnaise, gurkins etc. added by everyone to their taste. I am still in two minds about salads. It would mean plates and cutlery (which I have plenty of, but it is uncomfortable to eat with a plate on the lap around the fire). I think I shall do a test run for the bread rolls this weekend. Worst case I have an IKEA bread mix for black bread I could probably bake in muffin forms to make rolls rather than a loaf. Anyhow, something to look forward to.
And so, life moves along in its steady routine. January is almost done and in terms of my Aikido year as much of a waste in progression as the previous ten months – at least as far as my rank ambitions are concerned. But then again it is not about rank, but the art and there I might have made some progress. I am beginning to understand shapes (squares and triangles) and what the line is. I feel though I should get back to my earlier quarantine routine of doing rowing exercises, ikkio, tenkans and irimi tankan practice at home. And stretches, really, I should be doing those, I feel all stiff! Probably planks would be good too, they are just so hard to do. The days at home are long enough to fit them in, it is more a question of time of day. I am inclined to exercise in the morning, but then the mornings are my most productive time workwise. I may have to just go to bed earlier and get up earlier.
I have settled into too comfortable a routine. Starting the day with coffee, emails and a news forage before turning on the machine to do work. I shall think on it. The worst part of the pandemic is the loss of regular activities I find. Yes, I swim every day. But in days gone by, I would go to the dojo four or five times a week, which gave my evenings structure. This I think I miss the most next to the travel of course. Writting the blog has been helpful. It fills the evenings.
Working remotely has just made everything so much slower, so much more difficult to get things done. However, with all the developments on the vaccine front I am cautiously hopeful life will get back to normal by the summer. The Biden administration is serious about getting the pandemic under control and is trying to procure additional doses.
The fact that the one shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine seems to be just around the corner helps to keep spirits up. Generally, things seem to be improving. Infection numbers are trending down both here and in Germany (hurray), while deaths are still up, but then again that is to be expected as deaths lag a surge by some four weeks.
The USA added 129k new infections over the past twenty-four hours to bring the total to 26.1 million but saw over 4k death in a single day.
Fox News is featuring a story of a man who died after receiving a vaccine shot. Given millions have to date been vaccinated without any side effects, including mum, I am not sure such a narrative is helpful until all the medical facts are known.
Meanwhile the New York Times reports that Sanofi will produce the BioNTech vaccine to cover the current high demand. Sanofi will produce at least 125 million doses this year, leveraging its production facilities in Frankfurt as its own vaccine development is delayed. It is so strange to read this given my ex worked for Sanofi in Frankfurt; building their clean room facilities, so exactly those facilities now producing the BioNTech vaccine.
Meanwhile there is a row between the EU and AstraZeneca over vaccine delivery. The EU is complaining that they will receive less than promised, while the UK gets its full order. From what I have been able to establish this is not a national issue, but rather a question of organization. While the EU has signed an order for a certain number of shots, it has not even approved the vaccine yet and orders can only be produced once approvals are in place. The UK in the meantime has approved and confrimed the order for the vaccine in December. This allowed AstraZeneca to activate its supply chains for production, something still outstanding for the EU order.
The EU had spread its orders far and wide to hedge its bets; in my view a sound strategy. "The European Commission says it has reached agreements with four other pharmaceutical companies to purchase hundreds of millions of vaccines, once they pass clinical trials: Sanofi-GSK: 300 million doses Johnson & Johnson: 400 million doses CureVac: 405 million doses Moderna: 160 million doses The Commission also concluded initial talks with another company, Novavax, for up to 200 million doses."
One way or another I am hoping for a shot sometime in spring so we can go ahead with our summer plans and even the Aikido travel to South Africa!