Polarisation among scientists on Covid-19 responses

Last week, at the (virtual) ITM colloquium, a debate took place on whether the Covid-19 response had been balanced enough. In the slipstream of the discussion, before and after the debate a poll was also conducted with as main choices, ‘a top-down blueprint’ versus ‘a more flexible’ approach.

It was a rather animated debate, not unlike the fierce discussions some of us can witness on the Covid19- Sub-Saharan Africa Google group (where discussions don’t seem confined to SSA, as it’s hard to just refrain from commenting on one’s own setting or country, especially when there’s a new “wave”).

Even if the virus and Covid-19 still present many mysteries, it’s fair to say we know a lot more now than at the start of the pandemic. As scientists got to know the virus better over time, you would expect that polarization, at least amongst scientists, would have decreased, eight months into the pandemic. But the opposite seems true.

What are some of the reasons for this (continuing) scientific disagreement?  Let me give it a try. Below some tentative reasons, but I’m sure there’s a lot more to it.

Unlike polarization in public opinion, we can’t really blame the “Infodemic”, let alone wacko conspiracy theories for this disagreement. No scientist thinks that 6G will bring the ultimate solution, or that Bill Gates (of whom many of us agree that he’s way too powerful in the Covid19  ecosystem (and global health in general)) will include a chip in vaccines to make people more docile, etc.   (PS: there are also other reasons why public opinion is polarized, amongst others of course the impact of public health measures on their own lives)

Scientists, however, mostly know “the facts” (though some understand the intricacies of the virus or, say, modelling, probably better than others). Put differently, by and large, they tend to have all the ‘health literacy’ needed on Covid-19, unlike many ordinary citizens. Yet, we seem to interpret these facts in very different ways at this stage in the pandemic.

It appears many scientists currently want to occupy some pristine territory in between the Great Barrington Declaration and the John Snow memorandum. The poll also pointed in that direction, with more people favouring the ‘flexible approach’ over the ‘blueprint approach’ (PS: a bit problematic wording, if you ask me, as most scientists (who like to think of themselves as being “smartasses”), will always want be ‘flexible’ rather than seen as ‘rigid’)).   8 Months into the pandemic, most scientists now try to live in the mythical land of  “systemic Pasteurists”.  While I subscribe to that aim too, unfortunately, it’s not quite clear what that involves. And so we hugely differ in opinion on this “middle ground”. Even, in some cases, for some looking with more or less similar ideological glasses to the world.

And that’s part of the reason, I guess, why at the end of the day, you might get some “strange bedfellows” (as was also noticed this summer in the streets of Berlin, where at some point ‘dreamy left’ and ‘extreme right’ were demonstrating happily together against the measures). From my vantage point, some of the more maverick scientists even get rather close to Trumpean statements, even if they embrace a radically different paradigm and structural measures.

I don’t think ‘scientific discipline’ is the main explanatory factor. Some MDs are very much into Foucault, I notice, while others rigorously subscribe to the John Snow Memorandum (disclaimer: I signed the memorandum), and virologists’ views.  Conversely, some social scientists hear these days they suffer from a “medical gaze” 😊.  

So what is it then? A mix of personality (cfr: scientists with a libertarian streak, with for some a touch of machismo as well (?), vs more cautious ones); the  “path dependency” of scientists (professional and personal, some for example having worked in dire humanitarian situations), their ideology (how they perceive/frame  ‘Sweden’ & ‘South Korea’ tends to be a good indicator) (although even scientists with relatively similar ideology seem to end up sometimes very far from each other on the response approach they favour), including with respect to neoliberal austerity damage done in recent decades in health systems and society in general); the fact that first order (health) & second order impact (socio economic, mental health) are, to a large extent, occurring at the same time; a tendency to (over)generalize lessons from one’s own country (or countries you know very well, having lived there for many years), scientists’ philosophy of life, …  ?

It’s probably a mix of all of these. And then some more, like their comparative attention for civil rights & rule of law, and respective worry about “surveillance states”.

Long-term strategy no doubt also has to do with it:  how to capitalize on this Covid pandemic moment to get to a fairer & more sustainable world, and thus not squander a great opportunity for real structural change? As the saying goes, “If not now, then when?”  (as compared to what is seen by some as ‘propping up the status quo’, in the mainstream ‘pandemic mitigation’ discourse)  Others think, first things first, let’s first try to deal with the health care emergency, while trying to mitigate consequences for the vulnerable. And then, in a few months, pick up the indeed all-important structural agenda. Like the Allied forces also already started preparing for the world after WW II, while still focusing on beating Hitler and his gang.

One’s main focus of empathy (except family, of course) also seems to play a role. That is for many scientists (depending on family members, own professional environment & history) different.   (eg: some will focus more on (health) care staff under enormous pressure, whereas others who know single mothers with children, know they’re probably more afraid of lockdowns, or think of the enormous tragedies now happening in many LMICs or humanitarian settings, far away from Western media coverage).

Another factor: although all scientists agree that a vaccine will not be a ‘silver bullet’, they often differ in their assessment of the likelihood that a vaccine or some other medical treatment/invention will drastically change the picture in the months to come.

Finally, with Covid-19 implying a major paradigm shift at least as big as HIV (and probably bigger), scientists differ on how to interpret this paradigm shift. For some, the pandemic, as a syndemic, allows finally for more attention for social and political determinants, NCDs, … allowing us all to look with new eyes at these key issues, that have been overlooked for too long. For others, Covid rather feels like a “black hole” that sucks up all attention from these many other worthy causes, often (certainly in some settings) making many more casualties. As for my preference, having signed the JS memorandum, as you can imagine, I’m quite in favour of strict enough public health measures, fast enough, if the trend is going in the wrong direction, and I would personally just look in the direction of the “winners” of this Covid pandemic (billionaires, the financial sector, GAFA, and some other MNCs that still rake in extra billions while billions of people are suffering) to mitigate the socio-economic havoc wreaked on the many precarious people through lockdown or other strict public health measures.

So even if one agrees on the framing of Covid-19 as a ‘syndemic pandemic’, preferred responses by scientists can still be very different, as the pandemic hits those who are most vulnerable, but so does the ‘collateral damage’. That leads to very different assessments on what response is needed when, it turns out.

Anyway, these are some of the reasons I see for the sometimes ferocious disagreement between scientists on Covid-19 responses. I’m sure there are many more. And of course, feel free to disagree.

Still, in a democracy, it’s good to disagree and make your reasons why explicit. 

Hopefully, we’ll all get wiser as a result!

Geopolitics or a cosmopolitan moment?

 

Last week, China joined Covax, after some initial hesitation.

While the devil will no doubt be in the detail, this is still great news. While I won’t deny there’s (more than) a bit of geopolitics involved in this decision, as Adam Kamradt-Scott and others have argued, and I’m anything but a fan of Xi Jinping, a ruthless leader who indeed is playing the long-term geopolitical game in many areas and settings, there are also other ways to look at this.

1.      It’s just “common sense”, for China to do so, in the current situation.  With the current “black hole” administration in the US, Xi would be stupid not to do so. And Xi is many things, but not stupid, as far as I can tell.

2.      It’s even more common sense, if China anticipates a looming Biden victory. A Biden administration will no doubt join WHO again, as well as join Covax sooner rather than later. Better to be there too, then.  Even more so if the ACT-Accelerator turns out indeed a governance format for future health emergencies, as Tedros seemed to hint at last week.

3.      Most importantly, if a future Biden administration takes such a decision, you will hear a lot more about the US ‘joining the multilateralism camp’ again, and a lot less about the US ‘playing geopolitics’.

4.      The same goes for ‘Team Europe’, by the way. Its support for WHO and Covax is not often framed in ‘geopolitical terms’, even if the European Commission shows the same mix of ‘global citizenship’, ‘vaccine nationalism’ (or regionalism, in the words of Katri Bertram), support for its own vaccine makers and pharmaceutical companies, and engaging in geopolitics as Xi Jinping in the current situation.  But no, you hear a lot more about how much Ursula et al believe in ‘multilateralism’ and are great ‘global citizens’. Another, more neutral, term often used is Europe’s “global health policy”.

 

Finally, and I hate to admit it, but you can also see the Chinese decision as one step closer to a ‘cosmopolitan moment’ (if I put my ‘half full glasses’ on for a moment). The world coming together, given the exceptional circumstances.

 

A lot more is needed still, though, for such a cosmopolitan moment:

·        Biden has to win (and then let the US again ‘join the multilateral’ camp (incl WHO & Covax)).

·        The billions have to be found to finance the ACT-Accelerator, urgently.   My personal preference: I would just tax billionaires. But there are many other ways to ‘identify’ the billions needed, there really is a lot of money in this world, if you dare to look where it can be found. In the direction of the ‘strongest shoulders’, that is.

·        C-TAP and other initiatives to share COVID-19 health technology related knowledge, intellectual property and data  need to get much more prominence.  That won’t happen though, as long as civil society is not systematically included in the governance of Covax and other global health stakeholders (WHO being no exception, unfortunately), as it’s only through their pressure that some steps (Moderna) have already been taken.  It won’t come from philantrocapitalism or industry, I’m afraid, now all over the Vaccines pillar of Covax.

 

In sum, it’s a bit of both. Geopolitics and a step towards a potential cosmopolitan moment.

Next stop: November 3.

Football at the highest level: towards a post-neoliberal and truly beautiful game once more ?

Like many around the world, I quite enjoyed yesterday’s Champions League Final between Bayern Münich and PSG, in spite of the fake audience “cheering” and “protesting” throughout the game. Somehow it fit our “fake news” times.  I can live with the result as well. As I don’t want to impose any CL related reflections on IHP readers in the weekly newsletter intro, perhaps a quick separate blog.  If only for the ice hockey fans, or the ones who don’t like sports at all 😊.

 

1.      For a start, it’s just nice to see a ‘decent man’ like Hansi Flick in a very ugly, capital-driven world like top level football where big egos and so called “masculine values” tend to dominate. The resemblance with the empathic Joe Biden in the US presidential elections comes to mind 😊.

2.      While I’m a big fan of the beautiful game, having played it for a decade and a half, it seems more than time we rob it of its current neoliberal “values” - as we leave the neoliberal era hopefully well and truly “behind”, post-Covid.  I’m sure you’re familiar with most of these “values”: the winner takes all (the money), the rich only get richer (and the poor poorer), almost everything seems justified to beat the opponent (including rigging UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules, with the help of top lawyers), the ongoing trade in young African players (of which only the happy few will make it to the top, while the rest are being ditched somewhere along the way),  the shiny new stadiums, often constructed by workers in very difficult circumstances (see Qatar 2022), …  Yeah, I don’t need to tell you that “Qatar” rings a bell.

3.      While UEFA has done a really nice job with its ‘Thank you’ campaign for essential workers (especially, but not only health workers on the front lines), it would be far more convincing if governments started imposing a salary cap on football stars. Football players should never earn more than a prime minister (or president) in a country  (even an incompetent one 😊).  While they bring joy and grief to millions of people around the world, in the end, football remains just a game. Running a country is anything but, as we can see now all over the world. So by no means, football stars share the same responsibility as leaders of countries. As for their portrait rights and all other advertisements, I’m in favour of a ‘tax the 0.0001 % at 99 %” rule, certainly in difficult Covid times like now. To finance public goods. Same goes for tv rights. Tax Sky et al till they drop.

4.      I’m guessing with this sort of salary cap, it would also be far more feasible to get equal salaries for male & female football players. Win-win.

5.      Along the same lines, WHO would do well to not just set up “partnerships” with the shady likes of FIFA, or have football ambassadors for worthy global health causes  (like the goalkeeper of Liverpool, Alisson Becker), the social determinants & tax justice/health financing folks at WHO should also zoom in (and write big reports on) how vital ‘decent salaries’ and ‘tax justice’ (for the more “creative” football stars: that’s the opposite of “tax optimization” 😊) are for essential workers (and their salaries). And dr. Tedros (or his brilliant speechwriter) should come up with some nice mantra that goes with it.  Something with “two sides of the same coin’, no doubt.  Or: ‘Too many coins for Neymar leaves few coins for the others.’  Same for the World Bank et al. If you write worrying reports on the increase of extreme poverty (with hundreds and hundreds of millions of people having to live on less than a few dollars a day), do write also reports on where to find some of the money. You’ll see trust in multilateralism and some of its flagship organisations will suddenly increase exponentially.  

6.      Now that GAFA get more and more flak, in the US and elsewhere, among others for the billions they earned during the pandemic, while many others are struggling to just get by, the ludicrous salaries of football stars somehow seem to have escaped the ire of the public. It’s not clear to me why.

7.      As already mentioned, it’s a dirty world, football at the highest level. Not unlike politics, yes. And (part of) global health? Or rather, perhaps, in all these worlds, there’s beauty and purpose, but also the opposite, cynicism and utter ugliness. It’s about letting the first prevail.

8.      Last comment: I remember some in the global health community feeling sick and tired of the “sycophantic tweets”, a few years ago, but rest assured, by now I’m also absolutely fed up with the drooling comments by some football commentators on “dazzling football stars” etc.  I also enjoy their skills, but please, football remains just a game, even if Neymar et al are exceptionally talented. The contrast with the Coca Cola spot during the break, on everybody’s value in this world, is just ridiculous  (and yes, that goes with all caveats one can have about Coca cola ads 😊.  Can we just enjoy Neymar, Neuer and other Di Maria’s for their skill on the pitch, without having to turn them into the “gladiators“ of this age?   True, we would probably have to come up with a different name (than Champions League), then…  

 

How about ‘Essential Workers on the Pitch’ ?

“Global health” is wasting the corona moment

Lately, when watching the global health happiness around the GAVI replenishment and also the EC hosted #UnitedAgainstCoronavirus funding efforts – both of which are much appreciated and needed – I couldn’t help but think that “global health” (whatever that means) is wasting the current corona moment.

Most of us, while we do dream of a more sustainable way of financing Global Public Goods, still seem happy to think and work within the usual ‘global health financing’ box “in the real world”, not daring to venture out. Certainly not calling a spade a spade.

Meanwhile, some economists (like Gabriel Zucman, or in my country for example,  Paul de Grauwe) are showing the way, but in global health we still seem, by and large, happy with the usual ‘replenishments’ and “global” fundraising efforts (with a bunch of stars to add some glamour to it), basically going for the public money that is left after the corporate sector has had its typically “not so fair” share.

Maybe this is felt differently in countries like Holland or Germany who still have more financial room, but in countries like mine (where we are all anxiously waiting for the “financial corpses” in the corona closet that will need to be cleaned up, when we will at last have a government 😊) most citizens hope that the ‘strongest shoulders’ will help finance the way out.  Not that it will happen, but at least some experts and political parties are trying to make that case.

Along the same lines, when “global health” is asking for billions, like at GAVI/Global Fund replenishments, or now for ACT-Accelerator, why can’t we just argue for a wealth tax on the strongest shoulders, say, the 0.00001 %, to help finance these? Tens of billions will be needed, so why not just tax the ones who are probably shareholders of Big Pharma in the first place, so it might even just amount to “robbing Peter to pay Paul” !

Yet, I’m not reading that, so far.  Global health observers seem happy to continue to work within the global health financing box, basically in line with a “centre-right” world view (see Ursula von der Leyen, Macron, Merkel, …), with an AMC here, and some replenishments there (where usually from the private sector not much more is expected, in terms of financing of GPGs, than “peanuts” (which then invariably sparks lavish “global health” praise anyway, for reasons not entirely clear to me)).

I don’t get it. At a time when some economists are showing the way, and Ann Pettifor rightly argues for  thorough reform of the financial sector, the ones in global health who actually “have the ear” of (some) people with real power, stay silent, by and large.

I’m not talking here about Seth Berkley or Peter Sands, let alone Larry Summers (on whom I’ve long given up) - people who are “regulars” in Davos will surely not come up with centre-left recipes for the 21^st century – regardless of how many “agreements” the World Economic Forum still strikes with WHO. No, I’m talking here about the likes of Gavin Yamey, Amanda Glassman, Ilona Kickbusch and Peter Piot (after he has fully recovered from Covid, obviously 😊). Just some examples, I’m sure there are more like them, who are being listened to at the highest levels, yet I don’t see them making these obvious cases.

You could even link these wealth taxes to the “winners” of corona (Amazon etc), or to MNCs in the business of global public bads that need to go soon, for planetary health reasons. The “powers that be” usually have no trouble (nor moral qualms) whatsoever to ‘target’ the lowest ranks in society, but when it comes to taxing Bezos & other Ma’s, ‘targeting’ doesn’t seem to work anymore. Perhaps because they’re afraid of the bunch of lawyers that would go after them, if they just tried?

Anyway, perhaps Yamey, Glassman & other Piots don’t think it’s (politically) feasible in the current circumstances, or economically (I’m well aware we don’t have global taxation yet), or maybe some are happy to see Europe (and Germany) “take the lead”, or perhaps they’re worried they might lose some of their “impact” at these high-level tables if they actually started making cases like this. Or perhaps they just don’t think it’s part of their role as observers. I don’t know. Regardless, it’s deeply disappointing. Mind you, I don’t even read much about a FTT anymore these days.

It also renders global health lamenting about vaccine nationalism, populist leaders tearing up the multilateral order, or the geopolitical battle affecting global health a bit cheap. To put it bluntly, if even “global health” fails to put its ‘equity’ mantra into practice, demanding that the strongest shoulders pay for this corona moment (including a People’s Vaccine), why would we expect Trump & Xi to do otherwise?

Or even more bluntly: who would still dare to expect a cosmopolitan moment, if “global health” itself seems to have resigned to “the world as it is”?

It’s time global health joins the #BuildBackBetter movement.  So far, that’s not happening. Certainly not enough.

The GAVI replenishment & toxic tweets

Lately I got annoyed by a tweet Seth Berkley (CEO GAVI) sent, “Thank you @BorisJohnson, @BillGates and @melindagates for sharing your “commitment to the vital work of @Gavi and … the upcoming UK-hosted Global Vaccine Summit on June 4." I truly appreciate your commitment to the Alliance and global health security. https://bit.ly/2XgSgx5 “

It wasn’t the first time I got annoyed.  

No doubt I’m not the most unbiased person on earth when it comes to public-private partnerships, but at the same time, I have no problem whatsoever to admit that GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance is an important Global Public Good in the world “as it currently is”. So I very much hope its upcoming replenishment (4 June) will be a success, even if I’d like to see GPGs (like GAVI) to be financed in a different way, as I have explained elsewhere: by taxing the winners of globalization (and billionaires in particular), rather than through a “replenishment”.

So why do I get so annoyed then by these sorts of tweets? Well, frankly, I consider the ‘thank you, Bill’ tweets PPP CEOs’ sycophantic equivalent of dr. Tedros’ unfortunately still too common “thank you” tweets to authoritarian leaders (like Modi, Kagame, or say, the Belarus president). They are anything but smart, and in the current circumstances probably even toxic.

I notice on the GAVI governance web-page that they have one representative of civil society in their Board. Now that GAVI will, once again, be key in delivery of Covid-19 vaccines, (a vaccine (or even a few) will materialize, I bet, but not sure though to what extent it will be effective), I think it’s time to ponder greater involvement of social movements & civil society in the public-private partnership. Yes, to some extent, organisations like MSF Access play this role,  but given the ugly mood in many societies (and even uglier conspiracy theories on the likes of Gates et al), I think an organization like GAVI (and its CEO ) can no longer afford these sorts of sycophantic ‘thank you, Bill’ tweets. It smacks of Davos men & women ‘ruling the world among each other over high-level breakfasts’, and if I’m getting annoyed by them (PS: I guess I’m not the only one among global health observers, one of them called them – and I quote – a ‘freakin’ club’ ) then you can only imagine how tweets like this go down the antivaxxers crowd. And let’s face it, with a future Covid-19 vaccine probably at least a bit ‘controversial’ (in terms of impact, side effects, …), you want to be as transparent and democratic as possible.

Time to do something about it, Seth. And about greater involvement of civil society and social movements in general in GAVI. Twenty years after its launch at the World Economic forum in Davos, GAVI The Vaccine Alliance still comes across as a largely elite-led global public good. Time for a change.

World Health Day - Dear global health leaders, it’s more than time for a “double message” on health care workers

Tomorrow, 7 April, it’s  World Health Day, this time with the theme ‘support nurses and midwives’. As you know, this year is also the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife. Against that backdrop, it’s more than cynical to see so many (especially) female health workers in the frontlines of the fight against Covid-19 without proper personal protective equipment (PPE).   Many are already dying or will die due to the lack of PPE.

We hear a lot of talk and rhetoric about “our health worker heroes” now, but we have clearly failed to give too many of them, both in “developed” and developing countries, proper protection. This is something our same governments  (certainly in the West) would never allow for their soldiers going to war. Just ask some of the defense ministers, used to hundreds of billion dollar- budgets.

And if they did, the soldiers would go on strike, rightly so.

I’m not a health worker myself, but I happen to have quite some health staff among my family members, both nurses and doctors. And it’s blatantly clear at this moment in which settings some of them feel well protected while others say this feels like a sick Russian roulette.

Hence, I hope that dr. Tedros and many other global health leaders, in addition to their consistent messages on health worker heroes (not wrong, clearly) also provide an important add-on: that health workers without proper PPE have the right to strike, to quit, and/or ‘stay healthy at home’.   

As long as the global  bottleneck on material is not solved (which might take weeks or more probably months), every health worker without proper PPE  should be given the choice whether he or she wants to continue, making an assessment for him/herself whether the risk is acceptable. These health workers also have families, many of them belong to risk categories themselves or have underlying health conditions. Yes, that would lead to many more innocent Covid-19 victims, but these health workers are not the ones to blame for the situation. And you can’t expect everybody to be a ‘hero’, if ‘heroism’ resembles for some ‘going to war like WW I soldiers getting out of their trenches to face machine guns”.

They need PPE. Full stop.

If not complemented this way, the rhetoric of ‘health worker heroes’ feels just like empty waffling. So I hope dr. Tedros and his team start providing this double message at their media briefings. Certainly this World Health Worker week. And while they’re at it, they can then sketch a fairer – well resourced -world for health systems & workers, and where the money can be found for that. It’s not that difficult, really. You don’t need to envisage a grand “Apollo plan” or public health “Moonshot”...

A tentative “accountability” timeline for Covid-19

  Just a start, obviously. Lots more to be said, nuances to be added, errors to be corrected, etc.

1.      Global health neoliberalism doesn’t consider it too much of a problem if WHO isn’t sufficiently resourced. PPPs should get most of the money anyhow, as they ‘get things done’, presumably. Global health’s “who’s who” are quite happy with the few billionaires (and one in particular) who help the global health agenda (or at least part of it).

2.      The rich & wealthy (including MNCs & financial sector) are undertaxed, globally, for decades already, which is part of the reason why Global Public Goods aren’t sufficiently resourced. And health systems; ànd social protection systems; ànd PPE for health staff,  …    

3.      The Theory of Change of “Power in global health” counts on “Davos schmoozing” aka “networking” to get some things done (and funded). Obviously, they just get the peanuts, even on global health security & pandemic preparedness (which should interest the ‘powers that be’ in principle the most). 

4.      Meanwhile others engage in fairytale ‘from billions to trillions’ thinking, ‘leveraging’ private capital to get to some really “innovative” global health funding. That turns out a sick joke, with the pandemic bonds saga as just one sorry example.

5.      The Chinese regime botches the first month of the Covid-19 outbreak due to the “particularities” of an authoritarian regime. At that time, perhaps the world still had a chance to avoid the worst.

6.      WHO ignores a Taiwan warning (for too long), for political reasons.

7.      Western countries are complacent, and only start getting really worried once Italy gets hit big time, not (nearly enough) when they witnessed the horror in Wuhan. Perhaps a combination of counting on a SARS-containment effect + the ‘far away’ effect?  (East Asian countries do better for the same reasons); meanwhile, too many experts still compare the Covid-19 fatality rate with annual flu fatality rates – so that also public opinion gets worried rather late.

8.      Right wing populism & free-market ideology play an additional ‘postponing’ role in some Western countries.

9.      In country after country, the neoliberal emperor really has no clothes anymore.  Again.

10.   Turns out that global health security, indeed, starts at home. Who would have thought?

11.   The most narcissistic specimen among our Western “leaders” start the scapegoating big time. They started way earlier in the process, of course, but now they're gearing up.

To be continued, i guess...

PMAC: UHC Forum 2020 - Livestreaming the event should be a no-brainer

This year’s Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC) in Bangkok (28 Jan-2 Feb) focuses on accelerating progress towards UHC.  As always, the conference programme looks  rather appealing, even if it's hard to beat last year's theme on the political economy of NCDs.

There’s one downside though: I still can’t find much information on (possible) livestreaming on the website. So here’s a gentle request to the organizers: do make sure that at least for the plenary sessions appropriate measures are taken so that people from around the globe can also watch the great speeches and presentations in the Thai capital.

Also from a planetary health point of view, this should really be standard practice nowadays, in the year 2020.

It’s still a few weeks from now. Let’s just do this.