So how was May for me?

Some of my headlines for May:

✅ I’ve been reporting daily on the Kings College COVID-19 app. For a few days in May I didn’t feel quite right - no COVID symptoms, but still not quite right. The app invited me to get a COVID-19 test. Unsurprisingly it came back negative.

✅ I’ve continued my daily routine of posting my ‘reasons to be cheerful’ 31st May was part 73! Some highlights below.

✅ I cycled up to Newlands Corner for the first time ever (and have done it a couple of times subsequent to this too)

✅ Weekly family international monopoly via zoom - why did we wait until lockdown to start this habit?

✅ Paul relocated from his house to mine after several weeks of unplanned separation.

✅ Appreciating the garden. I rarely have time to even stop and look let alone sit in the garden. Bliss. I have some stunning trees and I’ve enjoyed watching the flowers and bushes change throughout the month.

✅ A week off work - that was a long time in coming after a very hectic start to the year.

✅ Discovering places that I didn’t know existed that are right on my doorstep and getting more adventurous with finding paths and trails.

❌ Still no swimming - not a single metre. Will this be the longest period without swimming since I took up the sport? 13 weeks is my longest previous gap.

✅ Had my second attempt at self-injecting my monthly B12 injection. Last month was pretty funny with rookie error after rookie error. This time I actually managed to get all off the liquid into me as planned!

❌ My back is pretty squiffy still. I’ve chosen not to do anything other than bike riding. I haven’t slept through the night since mid January.

✅ A fabulous birthday despite lockdown. I surprised Lauren by cycling to see her from a social distance (it was a very long and very enjoyable ride) and was pleasantly surprised to find Georgia do a similar socially distanced visit when I got back. Bliss.

❌ My Catalina swim has been cancelled.

✅ Virtual Dover training kicked off - cold water ‘swimming’ (swimming in the very loosest sense for many - some ‘swam’ in their showers or baths or stood and poured water over themselves. Others actually swam in paddling pools. Each week also had a silly challenge.

✅ The local chiropractic centre opened for emergency cases and that meant I could get some treatment for my very squiffy back. Whilst this first treatment didn’t quite resolve the issue, it felt great to finally be able to do something positive.

✅ I analysed the Government’s plan to ease lockdown and started to plan the safe return of the Dover channel swimming group. I have been blown away by the messages of support for the stance that I have taken.

There are a lot of ticks in that list. Whilst there is a lot of negative in the world, there’s a lot to be grateful for. Sometimes it’s harder than others to find those things, but they are there.

Training

Just for the record, here is what I managed to do in May, it’s now not so much training for an event, but more using my exercise opportunity for keeping healthy and for enjoyment. This month continued to be hampered by the back issue meaning no strength & conditioning work.

• Swimming - zero hours, zero metres

• Yoga - 1 hour

• Strength & conditioning - zero hours

• E-bike - 31.5 hours of cycling covering 527,832 metres (that’s a massive increase on last month’s combined cycling & e-bike of 133k)

• Walking - 2,670m in 45 mins (pushing my bike down narrow footpaths after a puncture!)

• Rest days - 4

Individual Clients

Individual clients continue in the coaching and sports performance arenas. It’s such a privilege to be involved in these journeys and I remain fortunate that 100% of what I do can be done online.

If you would like some support in adapting to a new way of living or help in replanning sporting events, please do get in touch.

emma@emma2france.com 07702 814690

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to grip the world, but we are past the peak and starting to have a bit more freedom of movement. For me that has meant slightly longer bike rides but otherwise no real change.

In this blog I will share how things were for me and do a brief recap of COVID-19 progress, as much as anything as an aide-memoire for me.

COVID-19 in May 2020

Like last month, I have sourced headline information from a variety of sources.

1st May

• Global number of infections pass 3.3 million

• Trump now hopes for less than 100,000 deaths

• Restrictions on movement are to continue for several more weeks in Ireland, although over-70s may now leave their homes to exercise.

• The UK reports 739 more deaths, bringing the total death toll in the country to 27,510. 

2nd May

• More than 65,000 coronavirus-related deaths have been reported in the US

• Both France and Italy record fewer than 200 deaths in a 24-hour period

• UK coronavirus fatalities stand at 28,131, but death rate is slowing

• Face masks will be mandatory on public transport in Spain from Monday

3rd May

• New York hospitalisations below 10,000 for the first time since mid March

• Travellers to France who arrive from a country within the European area (EU, the Schengen open-border area and the UK) will be exempt from a planned compulsory two-week quarantine, the French embassy in Britain announced on Sunday.

• Portugal has downgraded its state of emergency to a category of “calamity”, as the rate of new coronavirus infections reached its lowest since the beginning of the outbreak, six weeks after a state of emergency was declared.

• The UK will trial a new coronavirus tracing programme, which includes a smartphone app alongside traditional tracing techniques, on the Isle of Wight next week. 

4th May

• Trump ‘very confident’ there will be a vaccine by the end of this year. Trump’s declaration came despite his own pandemic task force predicting it could be another 18 months.

• The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, claimed there was “enormous evidence” coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory – but did not provide any of the alleged evidence. US intelligence had issued a formal statement saying the scientific consensus is the virus was not manmade or genetically modified. When reminded of this, Pompeo replied: ‘That’s right. I agree with that.’”

• New Zealand records zero new cases for the first time since before the lockdown.  There have been 1,487 confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, with 86% of them now recovered. Seven people were still in hospital.

5th May

• More than 3.6 million cases of the novel coronavirus, including at least 251,000 deaths have been recorded worldwide.

• There are 108 potential Covid-19 vaccines in development around the world, according to the World Health Organization. Eight of the potential vaccines are approved for clinical trials. 

• An influential model now forecasts that 134,000 people will die of the virus in the US.

6th May

• White House wants to wind down Covid-19 task force even as the rate of new infections continues to rise across most of the US. Meanwhile at least 70,847 people are now known to have died in the USA. That represents more than a quarter of all pandemic-linked deaths reported across the world.

• The global lockdown caused by Covid-19 risks a “devastating” surge in tuberculosis cases, with nearly 1.4 million additional deaths from the world’s biggest infectious killer by 2025.

• New Zealand reports one new case and one new death after two days with no cases

• The pandemic has cost Walt Disney US$1.4bn in the last three months. Disney said on Tuesday it will reopen its Shanghai Disneyland park on May 11 but severely limit the number of guests and enforce strict social distancing measures on rides and in restaurants.

7th May

• There are 3.75 million confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide with at least 263,831 lives lost in the coronavirus pandemic so far.

• New Zealnd’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced the country may ease restrictions significantly. The easing of restrictions, would include allowing bars and hairdressers to open, and gatherings of up to 100 people, would come into effect from Wednesday 13 May.

• Brazil confirms record daily cases and deaths prompting the health minister to flag the possibility of strict lockdowns in particularly hard-hit areas.

• In a reversal from comments by US vice president Mike Pence yesterday suggesting the coronavirus taskforce’s work would be winding down, Donald Trump said it would continue indefinitely. The president said on Wednesday he “had no idea how popular the taskforce is.”

8th May

• The Queen pays tribute to those under lockdown who are marking the 75th anniversary of VE Day. “Never give up, never despair, that was the message of VE Day,” the Queen says.

• Italy becomes the third country in the world with more than 30,000 deaths

• US jobless rate rises to 14.7% - the highest level since World War Two

• Global confirmed cases of Covid-19 stand at 3.8m with 268,000 deaths

9th May

• Russia hit by 10,000 new cases as total infections near 200,000. The country’s coronavirus taskforce confirmed that 104 people had died overnight, bringing the nation’s death toll from the disease to 1,827.

• The coastguard recorded the highest number of incidents in one day since the lockdown began as people “ignored” the government’s message to stay at home. The coastguard said there were 97 incidents on Friday, 54% more than the average of 63 recorded for the previous month.

• Indonesia records biggest daily increase in infections with Indonesia’s low testing rate criticised by medical experts.

• Germany’s plans to restart football suffer setback after the entire Dynamo Dresden team were placed in a two-week quarantine following two positive coronavirus tests among the players.

10th May

• Boris Johnson urged the country to take its first tentative steps out of lockdown this week in an address to the nation that was immediately condemned as being divisive, confusing and vague.

• In a significant fracturing of the four-nation approach to coronavirus which until now has mostly prevailed, the Scottish and Welsh governments and the Northern Ireland executive all rejected No 10’s new messaging and said they would stick with the current “stay at home” advice for citizens.

11th May

• The World Health Organisation says “extreme vigilance” is needed as countries begin to exit lockdowns imposed to curb the virus’ spread.

• Germany has reported an acceleration in new infections after taking early steps to ease its lockdown.

• South Korea, another country that succeeded in limiting infections, has seen a new outbreak in nightclubs.

• According to modelling carried out on behalf of the WHO and UNAids, the disruption to health services could take Aids-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa in the next year back to 2008 levels.

12th May

• Confirmed cases pass 4.2m globally and at least 287,809 people have died since the pandemic began.

• Lebanon orders ‘total lockdown’ people are told to stay at home for four days after an increase in infections followed an easing of restrictions.

• Anthony Fauci, the US government’s top public health expert, warns that official figures are underestimating the death toll in the US and that “the consequences could be really serious” if the country relaxes safeguards too abruptly. Fauci delivered testimony to the Senate on Tuesday as the US president, Donald Trump, encouraged businesses to reopen.

13th May

• Global confirmed death toll exceeds 292,000.

• Chinese authorities are preparing to test 11 million people in Wuhan after a small outbreak this week.

• Russia registered 10,028 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday. Despite the steady rise in new cases, Russia’s reported mortality rate is significantly lower compared with other European countries hit hard by the pandemic, with 96 new deaths and a total of 2,212 dead from the coronavirus as of Wednesday.

14th May

• The EU has insisted that any coronavirus vaccine must be available fairly to all countries, after the British chief executive of French drugs company Sanofi said it was reserving the first shipments of its vaccine for the US.

• Another 3 million people filed for unemployment benefits in the US last week, taking the total to 36 million in the last two months. The latest figures from the Department of Labor show the rate of claims is slowing but the record-breaking pace of layoffs has already pushed unemployment to levels unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

• Officials in Bangladesh have announced the first confirmed case of coronavirus in the country’s Rohingya refugee camps. Health experts and NGOs have issued warnings that the virus could race through the camps that house almost a million people forced to flee a military offensive in Myanmar almost two years ago.

• Ten people in Vietnam, including a 70-year-old military veteran, have offered to donate their lungs to a British man who is the country’s most seriously ill Covid-19 patient. Little expense has been spared by Vietnamese authorities to try to save the life of the 43-year-old, a pilot for Vietnam Airlines, the national carrier.

15th May

• The UK's coronavirus infection rate has increased and is close to the point where the virus starts spreading rapidly, government scientific advice says. The R-number needs to be kept below one to stay in control of cases, but it now sits between 0.7 and 1.0. It had been between 0.5 and 0.9.

• Doctors have backed teachers' unions by saying coronavirus infection rates are too high for England's schools to reopen. The British Medical Association said teachers and heads were "absolutely right" to urge caution and prioritise testing to avoid a second spike.

• Police issue 14,000 fines for lockdown breaches.

• A vaccine against coronavirus appears to have provided protection against the disease Covid-19 in six monkeys. It gives early hope for the vaccine, which is now undergoing human clinical trials.

16th May

• Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte announced the easing of a series of lockdown restrictions, including the reopening of all shops, bars, restaurants and hairdressers, from 18 May, and free travel to Italy for people coming from EU countries from 3 June without having to undergo quarantine.

• Nepal has reported its first coronavirus death late on Saturday, a 29-year-old woman who recently gave birth, as the total number of people infected in the country reached 281.

• Tens of thousands of India’s migrant workers on the move. Impoverished workers are leaving cities and walking on highways and railway tracks towards their home communities as they saw themselves forced to leave cities and towns after they were abandoned by their employers amid the nationwide coronavirus lockdown.

• Schoolchildren and their families will be tested for coronavirus if they develop symptoms, the British education secretary, Gavin Williamson, announced on Saturday in a bid to reassure parents and appease unions, as some children in England are set to go back to school on 1 June.

17th May

• Brazil’s confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus rose on Saturday past those of Spain and Italy, making Brazil’s outbreak the fourth largest in the world, behind the US, Russia and the UK. Brazil has done just a fraction of the testing seen in those three countries.

• There have been 4,634,132 confirmed cases worldwide, with 311,781 deaths.

• Barack Obama attacked the Trump administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic during a speech on Saturday. The comments are a rare rebuke of a sitting president from one of his predecessors.

• UK to invest £93m in vaccine manufacturing centre

18th May

• Italy registers 99 more deaths on Monday, the lowest daily rate since early March, and 451 new infections, down by more than 200 since Sunday. There is also a significant fall in new infections in Lombardy, the region worst affected by the virus, from 326 on Sunday to 175 on Monday.

• A total of 14,790 people died in April in Belgium – the worst toll since the country was under Nazi occupation in the 1940s, according to a study.

• UK confirms 160 more deaths taking the total to 34,796.

• Spain reports lowest death toll for two months.

19th May

• More than 4.1 million cases of Covid-19 have been recorded worldwide, including at least 285,000 deaths.

• New clusters in South Korea, Germany and China show the continued risk of reopening — even in countries that are seen to have managed their outbreaks well.

• Three top US health officials are entering either full or partial quarantine after two White House staffers tested positive.

20th May

• Global confirmed cases near 4.9 million and at least 323,286 people are known to have died from Covid-19 since the outbreak began.

• The US President told reporters at a cabinet meeting that the high number of cases in the US – far higher than any other country – is a “badge of honour”, because it means the US is testing the most.

• Brazil has confirmed a record 17,408 cases in the last 24 hours and a record 1,179 deaths. The country now has 271,628 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 17,971 people have died. Hospital officials say more than 85% of intensive care beds in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo are full.

• New Zealand PM flags four-day working week New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern has suggested employers to consider a four-day working week and other flexible working options as a way to boost tourism and help employees address persistent work/life balance issues. 

21st May

• After the biggest single-day increase in cases worldwide so far in the pandemic, the number of confirmed infections has passed 5 million. At least 328,471 people have lost their lives in the pandemic so far.

• A notice on the Wuhan municipal government’s website on Wednesday said that it is now prohibited to eat, hunt or breed wild animals, including terrestrial animals deemed as protected, as well as those that exist in the wild or are bred.

• IOC warns Tokyo Olympics will have to be scrapped if delayed beyond 2021.

• Afghanistan’s health ministry has said it has run out of hospital beds for Covid-19 patients in most parts of the war-torn country. Officials warned of a human catastrophe on the eve of Eid with streets “full of dead bodies” amid a continued surge of transmission across the nation, as Kabul recorded its worst day of the crisis for the second day running.

22nd May

• President Trump calls on US state governors to reopen places of worship currently shut due to transmission fears. Trump says churches, mosques are "essential services" and threatens to overrule state governors. But it is not clear what authority the president has to do so

• New measures to be introduced at the UK border on 8 June to prevent a second wave of infections, home secretary says. Compulsory quarantine for travellers to the UK to be enforced by spot checks and £1,000 fine.

• Brazil's death toll hits 20,047 as fears grow Latin America could become the pandemic's next epicentre. Countries including Mexico, Chile and Peru are also struggling to contain major outbreaks

23rd May

• China reports no new cases for the first time in pandemic.

• Global known death toll passes 338,000 with at least 5,211,172 people having been infected

• Boris Johnson’s key adviser Dominic Cummings is facing calls to resign after police spoke to him about breaching the government’s lockdown rules. He was seen in Durham, 264 miles from his London home, despite having had symptoms of coronavirus.

24th May

• There are fears the US will suffer a second wave of coronavirus infections as it opens up for summer, just days away from the grim milestone of 100,000 Covid-19 deaths.

• Brazil registered 965 new coronavirus deaths on Saturday, taking the total number of fatalities to 22,013, the Health Ministry said. The country now has 347,398 confirmed cases, according to the ministry, up 16,508 from Friday, when it surpassed Russia to become the world’s virus hot spot behind the US.

• New Zealand’s health ministry has announced there were zero new coronavirus cases confirmed in the last 24 hours. According to NewsHub, there are now only 27 active cases left in New Zealand, with one more patient recovered, bringing the country’s total to 1,154, with 21 deaths.

• In Australia, Victorian state premier, Daniel Andrews, has said Victorians will be allowed to have 20 people in their homes as well as overnight stays in hotels from 1 June. In New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, health minister Brad Hazzard announced that beauty, tanning, nail and waxing salons would all be open from 1 June.

25th May

• Boris Johnson's cabinet is to meet later to discuss the further easing of lockdown restrictions, but such details are likely to be overshadowed by the allegations facing senior aide Dominic Cummings that he breached the rules. Mr Johnson has defended his key adviser, but some Tory MPs say the row has undermined the government's message and want Mr Cummings to resign.

• The phased reopening of schools in England will start on 1 June as planned, with early years pupils, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 returning to the classroom first. On June 15, up to a quarter of Year 10 and Year 12 will be allowed "some contact" to help prepare for exams

• Large British companies severely impacted by the coronavirus crisis could be rescued, the UK government has indicated. The bailout plan, named "Project Birch", was first mentioned by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps in Parliament last week when discussing the future of the aviation industry and more details have been now confirmed by the Treasury.

• Lockdown has seen a surge in the number of online searches for cream teas and afternoon teas, new data suggests.

26th May

• Confirmed worldwide cases: 5.5 million +. Confirmed worldwide deaths: 349,000 +

• Twitter has taken the unusual step of adding a fact-checking option to posts by Donald Trump, in the wake of the US president's claims that mail-in voting would increase electoral fraud.

• Recent days have seen Brazil become the nation with the second most coronavirus cases worldwide, behind only the United States. There have now been just under 375,000 confirmed infections in South America's most populous country, leading to nearly 23,500 deaths.

• AXA said on Tuesday it would meet the bulk of business interruption claims from some restaurant owners in France after it lost a court case that was seen as a potential precedent for coronavirus-related disputes across the world. Stephane Manigold, the owner of four Paris restaurants who brought the case against the French insurer, told Reuters that since the court decision his team had received calls from Britain, South Africa, Spain and the United States asking for details of his contract and the court's ruling.

27th May

• Officials in Strasbourg have appealed for hundreds of spectators who attended an illegal football match at the weekend to be tested for Covid-19. An estimated 400 people played in or watched the game and the authorities, who fear a second wave of the pandemic, have called on them to attend a testing centre for anonymous screening.

• There have now been 118,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus across the 54 nations of Africa, according to the World Health Organization’s regional office for the continent. So far, about 48,000 people in Africa who have tested positive for the virus have recovered, while 3,500 have died.

• South Korea may need to reimpose social distancing measures eased in April as coronavirus transmissions crept up in the Seoul metropolitan area. Jeong Eun-kyeong, the director of South Korea’s centres for disease control and prevention, said it was becoming increasingly difficult for health workers to track the spread of the coronavirus. South Korea reported 40 new cases on Wednesday, its biggest daily rise in nearly 50 days, as officials scrambled to trace hundreds of infections linked to nightspots, restaurants and a massive e-commerce warehouse near Seoul.

28th May

• Coronavirus test & trace starts in England

29th May

• In the latest small step towards a return to normality, people from two different households in Scotland can now meet outdoors after 66 days in full lockdown. Similar measures are to be announced for Wales later, coming into force on Monday - which is also when up to six people from different homes in England will be able to gather. Northern Ireland, meanwhile, looks ahead to 8 June for the reopening of retail parks and even outdoor weddings with 10 guests.

• While the government has committed to funding 80% of furloughed employees' monthly pay - up to £2,500 - until October, support for the self-employed runs out this weekend. A cross-party group of 114 MPs is calling on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to extend that help.

• The NHS Seacole Centre, a hospital dedicated to helping coronavirus patients recover from the long-term effects of the illness, receives its first patients. The NHS says Covid-19 patients will need treatment for heart, lung or muscle therapy, wounds caused by having a tube inserted in the windpipe, and psychological or social care.

• Black men and women are nearly twice as likely to die with coronavirus as white people in England and Wales, according to Office of National Statistics figures.

30th May

• The UK is "at a dangerous moment" and the easing of lockdown "has to go slowly", England's deputy chief medical officer has said.

31st May

• Vulnerable people in England who have been asked to stay at home since the coronavirus lockdown began 10 weeks ago will be allowed to go outdoors once a day from Monday.

• When a group of performers left Mexico on a 75ft sailing boat on 21 February, they were aware of coronavirus, but they had no idea how soon - or how seriously - it would affect them. Countries suddenly started closing their sea borders, leaving the vessel with no guarantee of a safe haven before the start of the typhoon season.

I don’t know about you, but it is easy to become blinded to what is happening as we get used to our new ways of living and hearing daily numbers that you can’t really comprehend. At the beginning of the month there were 3.3 million cases reported worldwide and on 26th May there were over 5.5 million cases (both numbers are likely under representative). That’s a 67% increase. While some countries are emerging out the other side, some are just starting to feel the full force of the pandemic. I suspect it’s going to be a long time before we can put all this behind us.

Of course, for those of us who are lucky to get through physically and mentally unscathed, not everything has been a negative. I sincerely hope we continue to acknowledge the things that we can be grateful for and keep the good new routines.

What does June have in store?

In June I should have been travelling to the USA for the first of my big swims - Catalina channel on 30th June. That event and the one in early July have both now been cancelled. Whilst this is disappointing, without a doubt the organisations made the right calls for the right reasons.

Maybe I’ll have my first swim in 3 months, maybe.

I predict lots of COVID safe planning in preparation for starting Dover training in July. I predict countless more hours spend on video calls. I predict yet more miles on the bike and new places explored. Will I be able to keep my track record of never repeating a route? I wonder.

What about you? What do you predict for June?