 So here we go. Hello to everybody who is entering our Zoom room at the moment. I am Chrissie Neane from Avid Reader Bookshop and we're just admitting some more people now. So bear with us as we admit there's quite a large crowd tonight who will trickle in throughout the first few minutes of the event as we are happening now. So if you're in Brisbane, we just had a bit of a massive storm hit us really quickly. So I'm imagining that some people in Brisbane will actually be cleaning up a little bit of hail and a few limbs of trees down. It was all very dramatic and exciting for a few minutes. I always give a weather report as I'm letting people in. So imagine if you will that we're all in Brisbane, there is no COVID, we're all huddled together on the back deck, no social distancing, lots of kissing and sharing of glasses of wine. It's an alternative universe in this lovely safe space that we have tonight. Okay, well, I'm gonna start my introduction now and there will be more people arriving as I do it, but I will just start. So I'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land that we're meeting on. In this area where I am, it's the Yagra and the Turrable people and I would like to pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging and to any other elders who are here tonight. And also I'd like to mention that because this is Zoom, we are zooming out onto the lands of many different Aboriginal people. And I'd like to respectfully acknowledge all those people of all those language groups that we are zooming out to tonight. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land and sovereignty was never ceded. And we feel very privileged to be continuing a tradition of yarning and telling stories and basically doing science as has been done on this land for a very, very long time. Now, it's my great pleasure to be hosting this event tonight. We look forward to this book every year, but particularly this year because 2020 is the year that changed us. And honestly, this particular book is going to be a must have in every household. So it's really great to be kind of flagging this book and to welcoming the conversation who will be hosting with you tonight. It's a great stocking filler, I'll just let you know. And to also to show you where the chat function is I'm going to share a link to purchase this book. 2020, the year that changed us will turn up in your chat function now. And that chat function is where you can ask questions. So when we call for questions at the end or anytime you think of a question, just type it into that chat bar and we'd be very, very happy to take some of your questions at the end if we have time. So please keep that chat bar ready and waiting and type your questions as they come up. This book, 2020, the year that changed us via the conversation, again, a wonderful piece of work. So it's my job tonight to hand over to Liz Minchin who is going to take over from here. Liz Minchin is the Conversation Australia and New Zealand's executive editor and is a Walkley Award winning journalist and author. Liz has spent 2020 working with the Conversations New Zealand based editors and university experts which is why she wanted tonight's event to be a chance for you to hear from two top researchers from both sides of the ditch. So everybody welcome, Liz Minchin. Hello everyone. Thanks Chrissy and thank you everyone for joining us. It's a special trans-tasman event and we're going to be looking at the race for COVID-19 vaccine and also the lessons from this pandemic. I'd also like to acknowledge the Yagura and Terrible people, the traditional owners of the land that we're on now and pay my respects to Elders Past, Present and Future including any of you in the audience. We can't see most of you and that's totally fine to have your video off if you don't want to do it. I know many of you will be multitasking but it's lovely to see those of you who are there. And also those who watch the video later, we're hoping to record this and share it. So if we do look out for that on the conversation. Joining us tonight in Brisbane is the University of Queensland's Professor Paul Young. Give us a wave Paul, so they know which one to do. There we go. Paul is one of Australia's top phyrologists and co-leader of the UQ vaccine project. One of the vaccines that Australia is hoping to roll out next year. I just want to share the day that Paul agreed to do this event. The Prime Minister had just been visiting his lab so it's pretty fair to say he's had quite a busy year. And I'd also like to say Tenakota Katoa to those tuning in from Aotearoa, New Zealand including tonight's other expert panelist, the University of Otago's Professor David Murdoch who give us a wave, there we go. David is a clinical microbiologist and infectious diseases physician who's worked around the world including consulting for the World Health Organization and the US National Institute of Health and his first ever article for the conversation was chosen as one of the best for this year which is what was included in the yearbook. And you can buy that tonight if you haven't already, I know some of you have. And the editor of that yearbook, Molly Glassie is with us tonight too. And Molly, do you want to say hello? Hey, I'll just say a quick hello. Thanks Liz. And thanks everyone who's joined us tonight. Before we go back to the discussion I do quickly want to talk about the book. So earlier this year, much earlier this year I got in touch with the publisher, Tamsen Hudson saying that we had a bit of a hunch that this year was going to be interesting and that was a massive understatement. At one point this book was just going to be about coronavirus but then there was the Black Lives Matter movement. There was a broad commission into the bushfires. It felt like every week there was something new and very important that could have been included in this book and in most instances has. So as the year went on and all these different things happened there was one thing that maintained the same and we saw it in the conversation newsroom. And that was this refreshed and renewed need for experts for immunologists, epidemiologists, climate scientists essentially people who knew exactly what they were talking about could provide solutions and ideas. And in some instances just very basic clarification based on evidence, not alarm. So the authors who are in this book truly are the most equipped people to be writing about everything that happened this year what life looks like now and what decisions and priorities we really need to focus on moving forward. And I think Professor Peter Doherty hits the nail on the head with his endorsement of the book when he says, setting aside surgeons and airline pilots if I had to put my life in anyone's hands it would be the authors of this book. So if you haven't already, please buy a copy. It makes a brilliant Christmas present for any armchair experts. And on that note, I'll throw back to you, Liz. Thanks Molly. And I also just wanna say before I forget one of the real privileges of working at the conversation this year has been the fact that someone as busy as Paul literally working on a vaccine as we speak or someone like David has made the time to either write for us or join a conversation like tonight that the experts that we work with really love making sure that they're able to talk directly to you as the readers. And so we really, really appreciate their time. Quick reminder for anyone who has joined us late where we have muted all of you just to avoid loud background noise so do write your questions in the comments. So hopefully we will get to some audience Q and A I really am looking forward to seeing your questions that Chrissy will pick out but Paul, let's start with you. When we were chatting before this event you said there's just one question that everyone asks you when is your team's vaccine going to be ready? It's a good question. We're approaching the end of our phase one clinical trials. When I was asked this question back in January when it first became clear that we were going to see if we could drive all the way through to production of vaccine should it be successful. I said the fastest we could do it would be 18 months. And surprisingly we've kept to that line. Next month we head into with CSL a phase two, three clinical trial and we should be getting the data out of that or at least the first data out of that that will go towards a regulatory authority who can hopefully sign off on approval by the middle of next year. And with manufacturing ongoing at the same time then that's probably the first time we will have small doses, numbers of doses to be distributed. But 2021 is the year, 18 months from when we first started when we begin the process of rolling out. And just one thing for anyone wanting to get across all the different stages that all the vaccines around the world sort of up to. There's a really nice New York Times website with the vaccine tracker that Molly will share the link to in the comments. Please don't necessarily read it now but it's a really helpful thing that Paul looks at regularly himself. There's also one from, was it the London? London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, just LSHTM. If you put that in a vaccine tracker you'll find it in Google. So both of those, the New York Times one in particular is really nice with graphics even to explain the different, what happens at each different phase of the process and things. So today Australia's health editor, Health Minister Greg Hunt said the expectation is that Australians who sought vaccination will be vaccinated within 2021. Do you agree, Paul? Yes, as I said, I think not only ours but a large number of vaccines are progressing really well. Some in the later stages of their phase three trials. So I suspect that given that they're successful and we really don't know that yet for any of the vaccines we haven't seen the efficacy data which is the most important thing from the phase three trials but assuming that's the case then we may see some of them rolling out somewhere in the world in early 2021. Yeah, David, what's the state of play in New Zealand? Well, there's obviously a keen interest in making sure we have access to vaccines. So the focus has really been on looking at the various candidates and looking at advanced purchasing agreements plus also being part of the global collaboration with the COVID facility and having a contributing to that. So a lot of activity at the moment. And do you think that there'll be some kind of vaccine? And just to be clear, when Paul was talking about for some people and the minister was clear about these two it wouldn't be for everyone necessarily it would be those first caps off the rank people working in health, people who are particularly vulnerable those sorts of things. Do you think, David, that we'll have some sort of vaccine for those New Zealanders next year? Well, that's the, yes, we're working on a very similar timeline and I think each country is looking at knowing that they're not necessarily going to have a vaccine immediately that's going to cover the whole population and looking at the priorities and it'll be different for each country. Yeah, Paul, from your perspective, are there any lessons that we need to learn from this pandemic, positive lessons, things that have gone well or things that we need to learn from? Probably the biggest lesson is being prepared is actually a good thing. And over the last few years, I think the globe has been looking at ways in which we can do that more effectively. The Ebola outbreak in 2014 to 2016 was a real eye opener. And for the first, not for the first time, WHO was criticized for their reactive response to these outbreaks that, you know, we really need to be prepared rather than just responding in a delayed fashion to an outbreak that often could get out of control. And it was really in response to that the WHO started thinking about, how do we become prepared? And that's when an organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, they could have come up with a better title, but we refer to them as CEPI, the funding arm of that concept and the Wellcome Trust Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum and a number of partner countries, including Australia, have contributed funding into that organization and their remit is to fund new vaccines for somewhat exotic pathogens that are simmering away around the world and may emerge in the future, but also funding platform technologies that could be applied to an unknown pathogen that emerges. And that's where we came in. We'd been working on just such a platform technology for the last 10 years. And so they funded us beginning last year to start developing the title of our grant was the development of a rapid response vaccine pipeline for emerging diseases. And so we had at least one year of our three year grant to get some of that in place. And that's why we were so ready to apply to SARS-CoV-2 when it appeared. Yeah, and I think you said that just sort of generally speaking, sometimes it's easy to sort of see discovery science or that sort of, let's just find out how things work is not as important as the reactive sort of stuff, but that actually that really is essential and that we need to be doing more of that in Australia and worldwide. Absolutely, this is a perfect example. And I've used the opportunity whenever I can speaking to the public and speaking to government that you cannot overplay enough the importance of discovery science because that's where these translational outcomes emerge. And that's true in our case. We were working initially on just how this virus enters cells and how important it was to the structure of the protein on the surface of the virus in driving that process. That led us to an idea about a vaccine and I have to put my head off to Keith Chapel, a postdoc in my lab, whose idea this was the molecular clamp. And so what we were able to do was lock the surface proteins in the shape in which they appear on the virus surface. So a perfect subunit vaccine for which we could apply to a wide range of different viruses. So that came out of that basic science. And just to say again, that New York Times article that has really nice short summaries of what each of the project teams that different vaccines are doing and the different methods. So I will just say, Chrissy's got a little reminder there if you have any questions, type them in at any time. I know it's harder than at a live event and there's nothing more I love at a live event than sort of seeing people's hands go up and all that sort of thing. We don't have any questions in there yet. I'm happy to ask questions all night. That won't be a problem but I would really, really like to make sure we do have time for you. So I have factored in one some of you asking questions. So please, please do ask them. There's no such thing as a stupid question. If you don't mind, I might just jump in as you've mentioned that site and all the vaccines. I'd like to be first in line tonight to use the word unprecedented, but it's been the word of 2020. I think the other one is pivot but certainly it's been unprecedented the focus and the amount of effort in terms of vaccine discovery this year devoted to one particular pathogen. There are over 400 different recorded vaccine attempts going on in labs around the world and we're already up to about 50 in clinical trial. That has really never happened before and certainly not at this pace. So we are watching something really remarkable at this time and you asked me before about what might come out of this particular year. I'm just thinking of one particular approach and that is maybe we have worked out the turbo charge way of actually developing vaccines. Emphasizing of course that none of us are cutting corners when it comes to safety and efficacy but we're working out new ways of accelerating that development pipeline. Yeah, so over to David. That's actually a perfect segue to you because you were talking about Ebola and the World Health Organization. David, earlier this year you stayed up very late one night to write an article that I ended up working with you on and we'll link to that in the comments in just a second. I mean, in it you warned COVID-19 is being referred to as a once in a century event but the next pandemic is likely to hit sooner than you think. Why? Well, I think we've heard a lot about 100 year pandemics and I think that originated from the fact that our last major pandemic, the last global one was probably the 1918-19 Spanish influenza pandemic which was of course about 100 years ago but if you're looking forward, we've got plenty of evidence over the last 20 years or so that things are not quite, it's gonna be probably a lot sooner than 100 years. We've seen SARS emerge, we've seen MERS, we've seen a massive outbreak of Ebola like we've never seen in West Africa as it's already been referred to and now SARS-CoV-2 with COVID. So, you know, this is things appear to be ramping up and all of these we believe are linked to spillovers from wildlife from animals to humans and that's probably also humans have probably facilitated that in terms of the changes we've made to the planet that have increased the contact between humans and wildlife. So, you know, looking forward, we would anticipate that this is gonna happen with greater frequency unless things change which we've no real sign of that yet. Yeah, and so there is that link to David's piece which is also, for those of you who haven't, it's in here too, a major UN report released a week ago warned in fact that up to 850,000 undiscovered viruses could be transferred to humans, a thought to exist in mammal and avian hosts. Again, we'll link to that in the comments that was published on the conversation only about a week ago. David, your co-director of One Health, Aotearoa, can you quickly explain what a One Health approach means and why you argue that Western countries like New Zealand and Australia need to adopt that approach? It means a few things to different people but basically it's based around the concept that the health of humans, other animals and the environment are very much interconnected and that we should be thinking more holistically in our approach to a lot of health hazards and infectious diseases. This fits really, really well and COVID's a very good example where there's probably, this is an infection that started from wildlife spilled over to humans and environmental factors were certainly probably very much involved in that. So that's basically, it has different, slightly different meanings to different people but it's that holistic approach and for many countries including New Zealand, it aligns very, very much with indigenous Māori thinking of the holistic approach. So it's actually not a new one and in fact you could say it's quite an obvious one but it's not something that we've really followed. Yeah and as you noted in your article, you linked to a really nice article that we published by a Māori Massey University philosopher Crucial Watane on how caring for community to be coronavirus echoes indigenous ideas of a good life. That's a really nice piece and it sort of goes into that a little bit more. I'll just pick up on that quickly because it's one of those issues where we sort of all agree that it's the right thing to do and we should adopt a more holistic approach but then actually doing it seems to be a challenge. Is there sort of a lesson on that that you hope that we'll learn from COVID-19? Well, I think you're right. Certainly in science and many other areas we tend to work in silos and it's actually breaking down those silos that are important and taking that broader view. I agree totally with Paul. Preparedness has been the, this is the big lesson to be better prepared for the next health, next infectious diseases risks and what we tend to do is wait until the current crisis is over, review it, make some recommendations and then promptly forget about them and actually now is the time before this has ended while it's still very much front of mind for us to get on and really think how we can do better and better preparedness in many ways be much more joined up and among scientists, building capacity. I mean, we all now know what an epidemiologist is but actually there aren't that many infectious disease epidemiologists around and most of them in most countries, most of them are vets rather than human health people. So, you know, that's one example of an area that needs greater capacity modeling. Public health responses have been looked at in many places. Having pandemic and infectious disease risk plans that are not just based on influenza that are flexible and able to be adapted, having the right leadership in the right places, all these things need to be looked at, plenty of things to look at. So, I've got more questions I can ask. No one, has anyone want to quickly put their hand up either that I can see or jump in in the comments? There are a few comments as well, by the way, Liz. Oh, good, okay. You just can't see them, that's all. Oh, that's fine. No, no, no. I was making sure. I'll ask a couple more quick questions and then I'll... Do you mind if I just follow up? I mean, what David said is absolutely correct and one thing apart from the need to be prepared that this pandemic has highlighted for us and New Zealand because we've been having conversations with our New Zealand counterparts is the realization of the fact that we don't have sovereign capacity here to really respond in a multitude of ways. I mean, our vaccine is going forward for a very fortuitous reason and that is our platform technology just happens to marry with the only big farmer that is in Australia and that's CSL. They have the capacity for us to simply transfer our basic platform into their large-scale manufacturing processes and it's worked really well. But if we'd been developing any of those other vaccines that you'll see on the New York time site, we wouldn't have been able to go down that path. So it's opened up these, you know, I think one of the biggest gaps is in the bridge between the absolute excellent underpinning science in infectious disease and immunology and vaccine and therapeutic design, the biomedical space really, both here and in New Zealand and our ability to translate that into therapeutics and vaccines and drugs and so on. There is this big gap where that really good science needs to be just manufactured at a scale that you can actually test it in humans, that then makes it attractive because it has to be attractive to big farmer to then take it on because it's only those big industries that have the capacity to really develop at a scale that would deliver a product. And so what I think we need to do as a country is invest in that capacity. And as I said, we've reached out to New Zealand and New Zealand have reached out to us and we're talking together about joint capacity for the future. That's another big lesson. That makes a huge amount of sense. And just on that, in fact, for anyone interested, there was a really good piece published only in the last day or so on that very issue of Australia's capacity to ramp up producing vaccines. I think it was maybe yesterday, if you jump onto theconversation.com slash AU, you'll definitely see it. It's Molly, it's the mRNA, I think was in the headline for memory, but it actually explained the process and explained why, yes, we can make the UQ vaccine and that's fantastic with CSL, but as Paul was saying, there is that real risk that if another kind of vaccine is the one that turns out to be successful, our capacity to make that, it could leave us behind other countries in being a roll it out. And the science minister for memory was questioned about that on Insiders and did acknowledge it would probably add potentially nine to 12 months, if I'm remembering correctly, to that process. So with all of these things, it can sometimes get a bit sort of acronym-y and kind of, you know, is this important? One of the nice things for me about just a reader of the conversation is actually being able to hear from the researchers who can explain that and there's nice graphics in that piece that explains some of the science behind it too. I don't know if you saw that one, Paul, but it was by someone else, but it was a good point. Yeah, no, I did see that. Yeah. An avid reader of the conversation. Oh, thank you, we paid him to say that. David, you can say nice things too, if you like. Yeah, yeah. Now, I can ask more questions, I'm happy to ask more questions, whether it's on the World Health Organization, Ebola, the lessons from Ebola, you know, what happens with the US election results, which we're all obviously watching and what that means for global leadership. There's all sorts of things I can talk about, but Chrissy, if you've got some questions, I would love to hear those. All right, I'll jump in with a couple and then we can go back to it. So John has asked, will there be different types of vaccines for different age groups, which is an interesting question? It's a very interesting question and obviously one that we're interested in. In our phase one clinical trial, we initially began the trial in typically what you do with a phase one study, which is 18 to 55 year old, so a healthy adult group. You don't want to put anyone at risk, but as we progressed through that and saw that our vaccine was safe and well tolerated, we expanded the trial to 56 and over because that is the target group that the group most at risk of severe infection with COVID. So we need to look at that response. We're very buoyed by the fact that we're getting good responses in the elderly, but that might not be at similar to what we're getting in a younger age group, but that might not be the same with other vaccines. So it's certainly something that's being tested and all the phase three trials have separate cohorts where they're looking at responses in elderly, responses in younger individuals, even down to infants. And there may be a need to tailor make or tailor use some of the vaccines. We have it at a disposal for different groups. Cool, there's also a question, which I would like to know as well, what if it happened to that Russian vaccine that they were talking about early on? It's still progressing. They definitely announced it a little too early. I think it was like two weeks or something into their phase one clinical study that they were announcing they had a vaccine. So there was no way that they could have decent information out of that. Russian scientists do great science and the vaccine was a really clever one. It's composed of two viruses that are carrying the same gene. So they're defective viruses that don't cause disease on their own. They're just the vehicle to deliver. So it was a two shot vaccine, which I think will probably work well. But after that initial burst, I haven't heard anything further. And Sina has asked, is climate change and the increased temperatures the main cause behind the spread of diseases like this one? David, do you want to take that one? Sure. I wouldn't say it would certainly climate change is something that in terms of the environmental effects it would be one contributor to the changes. But whether it's the major one, I wouldn't want to say, but there are many factors that are contributing to the change and the ecology of a lot of these viruses. So we're seeing it's quite a complex interplay that the viruses, the various animal hosts and then their opportunities for interaction with each other and with humans and then the opportunities spread around the world with greater transportation, et cetera. All these factors are important, but certainly other ones such as deforestation, increase, getting increasing, changing land use for agriculture, some of the ways that wildlife is consumed and the way they're processed, all of these factors are important. And crowding, certainly in West Africa with the Ebola outbreak, the fact that it got into an urban environment for probably the first time. I mean, Ebola had been in much smaller outbreaks in very remote rural communities, but it did get into crowded urban environments and that was a major factor and it becoming so large. We've got a question from John, saying long COVID amongst young people hasn't yet arrived in full, are we ready to deal with the coming chronic disease load, both infrastructure and cost-wise? It's on a lot of people's minds and just what are the long-term consequences? And obviously we're not even a year from the first cases to know the sort of follow-up. So lots of cohorts have been followed around the world at the moment to understand it, to find out who exactly are having the long-term complications, what they are, what might be causing them, what we can do about it, but it's certainly there's without doubt a group of people who are having long-term consequences, well, at least long-term to date consequences and there are probably different types, but yes, we're still learning about that. Yeah, it's not a completely unique respiratory pathogen, but it is one of the rare ones that move beyond the respiratory tract. Influenza and the ones we typically see are cold viruses and so on, are very contained and constrained within that respiratory tract and that's where the symptoms occur. But this virus can escape the respiratory tract and spread systemically around the body and it's been found in a wide range of different tissues now. And so therein lies the concern people have about the long-term sequelae of an infection. I mean, we've been focusing for a long time and all of the media reports are about the fatality figures and that's been, if you get it, that's one cohort and if you get it and die, that's another cohort. And we just seem to be not having that conversation. Scientists are, but we're not having that conversation about the consequences of getting infected as a young individual and the disease sequelae that may come from that. And as David said, that's still playing out. We've got an avalanche of questions now coming in. So I can keep going, Liz, if you want, or did you want to ask a few more before I? If you've got tons, I'd really come to you from the audience. I'm happy to maybe to have a couple at the end if there's time, but equally let's just let the audience ask questions. The elephant in the room has come up. The word Trump is in one of these questions. He's in the back of all of our minds, I suppose, today. But have you got any idea what they actually did give to Trump and whether it made him well at all? Yeah, he received a bit of a cocktail of different things, but the one that made most of the news was the cocktail of two antibodies that he receives to monoclonal antibodies that bind the virus. There have been multiple studies, clinical studies, on that particular therapy. And they haven't been brilliant in terms of outcomes, but many of the individuals, those infected, who've received it, have received it at different times after the infection period and thought that it may not work all that well later in the infection when the damage is really happening deep within the lung. I think they caught in fairly quickly and fairly early with that antibody and also gave him a dose that I've never seen before, which was eight grams, I think it was. That's much more than I've seen anybody therapeutic given. So who knows, it could have been that. And what's the relevance of the CSIRO in all of this research, industry collaboration, given the insecurity of government funding as well? Yeah, so, well, I mean, CSIRO has the, probably one of the world's biggest facilities for looking at animal health. And they also do pre-clinical studies, so where we actually assess the efficacy of a treatment regime against, in an animal that is challenged with a live virus. And this is a virus that has to be maintained into an under fairly high containment and the facility down in Geelong provides that. So they've been doing some pre-clinical testing for a few overseas vaccines. They also have a small scale manufacturing facility and we worked with them to develop the first vaccine, which we put into our phase one clinical trial. That's now transferred to CSL and CSL are doing it, but certainly CSIRO provided that impetus. Just to pick up on that, for any New Zealanders tuning and CSIRO is a major government funded research body that also works with industry. It was either today or yesterday on Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC News, the story by the coming out from the CSIRO, very much echoing the sorts of warnings David's raised and also Paul about transferring diseases from animals to humans too. So very much the same messages coming from the scientific community over a very long period. But just it's a matter of whether we listen to it both politically and in all sorts of things that we do. Yeah, so they've certainly had a history in looking at some of these diseases. The obvious one hasn't spread at the sort of epidemic or pandemic level that the coronavirus has, but that's Hendra. A highly pathogenic virus that emerged in Brisbane. And a lot of what we know about Hendra was done at the facility in Geelong. There's a question from Roz here, which is about, are there any reassurances that can be given to those who received the vaccine early as soon as it arrives that they're not gonna be any side effects I suppose? The, all of the vaccines, including ours, are going through these clinical trials at the moment to determine exactly that, what the consequences are. Given the likely need for distributing these fairly early on in the life, essentially, of the vaccine, precludes us from knowing that the longer term consequences. But we get a lot of that information out of the clinical phase trials. And none of these will be rolled out if there is any expectation of deleterious effects. And Helen has asked, what commitment has both Australia and New Zealand made to helping poorer countries pay for vaccines? And will they treat internationals in our COUs? I'm sorry, I don't know what that means, but Australian and New Zealand helping other countries, is that something that's on the cards? My understanding is it is, but that's a question for the Australian government. But certainly CSL is planning to be making doses not only for Australia, but also the region. Yes, New Zealand certainly is and has a regional responsibility in the South Pacific, which is taking very, very seriously. And that's, so any vaccine for New Zealand that's front of mind, looking at suitability for those vaccines for Pacific realm and some of our realm countries. And also New Zealand for the first time is contributing to the Garvey Alliance, which is an entity that has for many years quite successfully supported the introduction of vaccines into low income countries. There's also a question here about the spread of the viruses from animals to humans. Is it purely by consuming meat or can it be picked up through other ways? And I'm thinking about that story about the mink farm that I read at one point, which I don't think we eat mink. So maybe is it something that is transferred in other ways? Yeah, there are multiple ways in which viruses can spill over from wild hosts into perhaps domestic species and then into humans or even directly. And quite frankly, it happens the other way too. Viruses spill from humans back into animals. As David was saying, it is a one-help view that we need to be taking. But that transmission can happen in multiple ways. I mean, with the mink farms, I suspect that it's simply aerosols. So it's someone with infection coming in close contact with minks and then they spread it by that respiratory route as well. Another major way in which viruses can spill over from animals into humans is biting insects. So mosquitoes, midges, ticks and so on that feed both on animals and then on humans. And that viruses can transmit very efficiently that way too. I'll ask this one more question and then I'll hand back to Liz, I think. So Susan has asked, I said the UN's pandemic report was frightening. Is it inevitable, presuming governments won't stop deforestation and urbanization that this will be the pandemic century? Hi, David. Yeah, I think, you know, certainly you can read these reports and feel fairly pessimistic. And I think what is pretty clear is that we will see this pattern unless things change. So, yes, but I mean, there are opportunities to change and that report does outline quite a few. The number of them pretty high level and it is gonna require a lot of inter-country cooperation which of course, you know, that can be challenging but absolutely it is hopefully a call to action and there have been many. So this year we've had the World Wide Fund for Nature and the UN and several entities coming out with these similar reports and recommendations. Yeah, I'd like to circle back to a comment you made Liz very early on. And that is that this year has seen the return of experts and people believing in them. And the point is we've been saying this for some time and being ignored. I often show, I have been showing this year in seminars that I've given. I take a slide, the last slide I gave it a public lecture in the State Library last October and my talk was about emerging viruses and pandemic preparedness. And so it was in October, two months before and I made the point that this is inevitable. It's not if, it's going to be when and it's a matter of being prepared and listening to approaches that we can take. We've known about this. I think possibly one of the most obvious pieces of science to point to that highlighted how much we knew what actually was published last year. And it was a group of scientists, collaboration between Chinese and American scientists who did a zero survey. And what that means is they go around and just randomly take blood. They do ask the people if they can take it. But they collect blood samples from a particular populations in a particular area. And this happened to be in Southeast China. And what they were looking for was evidence of coronavirus spillover into the human population. This is last year. This would have been done over the previous two or three years. And what they showed was that there was serological evidence. The reason for taking blood and measuring is that we mount to anybody responses. So they're a little signature. They're a little flag saying this person has encountered this virus before. And what they discovered was that there was antibody in most individuals to what would have been exotic coronaviruses, ones that were related to viruses out of bats. But the point is that didn't then spread onto a pandemic. So the paper was saying this is happening all the time. It's not rare events. The rare event is when a spillover of a virus that just happens to hit the sweet spot of transmission in humans that it then takes off. And that's what happened with SARS-CoV-2. But what that highlights is our ability to maybe intervene. I mean, if we had appropriate surveillance, that sort of surveillance on a regular basis, routine surveillance where we could monitor potential outcomes before they happen, then I think those sorts of approaches are ways we can actually be better prepared. So we are learning a lot. And I think we just need the resources put into establishing these sorts of networks around the globe to be better prepared for the next. Chrissy, and the audience and everyone watching, please keep asking your questions. There may still be time for one or two more. So we'll see if we can sneak them in. I just want, I'm very aware that sometimes with a topic like this, it can be depressing. And so I wanted to actually ask, before we started the conversation here, we were talking about how Ebola and some of the previous epidemics and pandemics that we have seen really good international collaboration. And for the political nerds in the audience, one of my favorite books of this year was written by Samantha Powell, the former US ambassador to the United Nations. And she had a whole chapter on Ebola and the US response. And what really opened my eyes was how easily that could have got out of hand in the US, just in the US alone and how it was really, really strong international cooperation was quite central in, meaning it didn't actually affect our lives that much here in Australia and New Zealand. So I wanted to ask the two of you, and Paul, you were saying before that it wasn't just the US, it was also really important Chinese leadership. Can you point to an example either from the current pandemic or previous outbreaks where you've seen, we so often hear about the world not working in China and the US being at loggerheads. Can you point to any examples of really positive, encouraging international cooperation that give you hope? I can point to the day it happened for me. I mentioned the organization CEPI before. At their inauguration meeting in Paris in February of 2017, it was a meeting I'd been working in what we call neglected viral diseases for some time. My main specialty is dengue. And so I've been interested in those diseases that afflict many across the developing world that big pharma don't tend to put a lot of effort into. So researching strategies for diagnosis, therapy and vaccines for those sorts of disease. And there's always been this problem of getting engaged interest by those who are eventually going to develop the vaccines and drugs that get into the community. So I rocked up to this meeting because I knew that it was going to be attended not only by academics but also small biotech and large pharma representatives. And I've never been so positively buoyed by just the engagement and the willingness of all parties to collaborate. And I think it was that meeting. It was a touchstone moment. I think it was that meeting that then got CEPI really rolling. And so the funding that they were able to provide actually did provide these linkages around the globe between academia and industry to tackle these really important issues. So that was the moment for me and a very positive one as well. I don't think we'd be where we are in the terms of the development of all of these vaccines if this hadn't happened a couple of years ago. David, any positive side from this current outbreak or previous ones in terms of things that give you hope that we can learn from this? Well, yes, and I'm a bit of an optimist. But I've also, I think we've seen it at many, many different levels, the kind of engagement and the sharing of information that is quite phenomenal. There's just so many. I'm sure Paul sees it very much in the vaccine world. But I'm also on the independent steering committee of an overseas European vaccine development. And it's given me some insight into the kind of cooperation between. And I don't know whether Paul can share from his own perspective. But just in terms of what Paul pointed out to me, it's not a race against each other. It's a race against the vaccine, was the comment. A race against the virus, rather. And I think we've seen it just at so many levels, the kind of cooperation and long may it continue. That's great. Now, I'm going to, what's the time? We've got a little bit of time. I'm very aware that we do definitely start to get people dropping out at this point. So I'm going to be a bit cheeky and getting my thank yous for those of you who are going to leave. And then we'll hopefully have time for at least a couple more questions. Just want to say two things. One is that working with the New Zealand universities and experts like David this year, there's been record interest, not just obviously from Australia and New Zealand, but around the world in New Zealand's elimination response. Paul was joking before about whether we should give David a round of applause. For those interested in following not just New Zealand's COVID response, but also New Zealand politics, all sorts of things, it's an incredibly interesting time for New Zealand. You can get the daily conversation newsletter. But if you're interested in getting the once a week newsletter with just a wrap of what we published from the New Zealand universities, Molly will put the link into the comments. And it's just a really easy way for you to keep on things coming out of New Zealand, whether you're watching from New Zealand, hello again, or here in Australia, it's just once a week as an email. I also wanted to say thank you, my thank you, before just in case people missed out, before Chrissy takes over with the final questions, not just to Paul and David, but also to you as readers of the conversation or people who are engaged with the news and also the universities that we work with, the University of Queensland, Otago and elsewhere, without the universities working with the conversation and without readers like you, we couldn't actually run this event, we couldn't publish this book and we couldn't work as the conversation, we're a not-for-profit. And this year it was going into the pandemic, it was quite scary because all media were really being hammered and we were genuinely not sure what our future would hold and our capacity to publish David's pieces, do events like this with Paul and others, was really kind of up in the air and we had our best every year for reader donations, we had 20,000 people from across the region and overseas who supported the conversation. So even if you're not one of those donors, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who do read the conversation and for that sort of support because it really has been a difference between us, potentially having to cut staff or instead of being able to kind of ramp up and really do the best job we can. So I just wanted to say thank you before you all run away. I would also really like to hear some more questions. So Chrissy, any more? There are more questions and before I do the questions, I will do one more plug for the book and to remind you that it is a good stocking stuffer and to sweeten the deal, Avid Reader is offering a 10% discount, not just on this book, but on anything you put in your cart for the next 24 hours if you use the word event, EVENT at the checkout, as long as the book is not already a discounted book, you will be able to get 10% off for the next 24 hours for anyone who is here tonight. So do take up on that. There are a couple of questions here. John has asked, given the fluctuating transmission nature of the disease, why is an area-based traffic light system not being implemented? Would that be kind of smart in conjunction with the, Before I answer that, I would just like to say, go to theconversation.com slash NZ. We had a really nice piece from Nick Wilson and Michael Baker at Otago, talking about a traffic light approach. It's a really, and again, another really fantastic contribution from them. So jump on and take, and maybe Molly can share that link, but Paul and David, what's your response? I think this goes back to the comment earlier about experts, and you don't talk outside your area of expertise. I'm not an epidemiologist who really should be answering that question, but certainly response in a clustered fashion. I mean, it's a cluster approach for particular areas, giving that traffic red or green light response. I think that's likely to work, particularly in countries like Australia and New Zealand now that have essentially suppressed the virus. So it would be, I think, a logical way to go forward in terms of keeping that level down. And I think it's also a good communication tool in the way about the type of interventions and rules you need to follow. So the New Zealand public got very used to it. And so you actually, you can talk it up and talk it down and you can move levels and people now know and they know what to expect. And that was, I think, exceptionally helpful in being able to transition to have that very clearly spelt out and be nuanced along the way as we live more about it. There's actually another really nice essay in here by Suze Wilson from Massey University talking about Jacinda Rydern's crisis communication and comparing it to some of the other international leaders including Boris Johnson, who clearly is not doing the best job. And what was really interesting for me as an Australian but working with New Zealand universities was and sort of paying attention to the messaging from both countries. It really was very, very clear right from the outset from New Zealand and this fair bit Australia and other countries could learn from that. There's a question here, which I know is not gonna be your area of expertise, but Liz, you might have some nice links for it too. The kind of the rise of all this conspiracy theory which is kind of like making it very difficult for people to find out the real information about vaccines, the anti-vax kind of movement. What do we do to kind of combat that? What do you guys feel about it? How do we combat it? Gosh, it's a, and it's not a new issue. Obviously, we're seeing a lot of it at the moment because of, there's such a big event, such a big crisis that we're dealing with. But again, it's trying to circle back onto people's sources of information and check the reliability. Is this a reliable source, et cetera? But it is hard and it's obviously very difficult to manage. But yes, it's a complex issue. Yeah, and a very challenging one. I mean, obviously in the days of social media now, that's where we have the biggest problem. And I guess it's circling back yet again to listen and review from experts, not from Joe Blogs, who has 17 followers on Twitter. I mean, the anti-vax has been a real problem since the late 90s and has only been growing. And it's an extraordinary, frustrating thing for many of us who work in the field. There is so much evidence to highlight the importance of vaccines and so much evidence and time has been put into debunking certain anti-vax theories. And, you know, trying to get that across we just keep needing to do it. I think one of the issues that we have to learn more effectively and you talked about being thankful that David and I could take the time to speak, but it's absolutely essential. It's one thing to be working and beavering way in the laboratory. We need to be able to communicate what we're doing and effectively to the community. It's our responsibility to do that. So I view this as an absolute responsibility of mine to get out there and communicate as much as I can and to hopefully counter some of those who are out there with false facts. And it is what the conversation was set up to do was to try and bridge that gap. It's basically act as translators and make sure that the really interesting research being done in universities and research institutions is getting out to the public. In terms of a link, there is a story and I can't remember the headline. We've published a number of not just the conversation Australia and New Zealand, but also some of our overseas editions. We've got sister editions too. If you Google how to talk to anti-vaxxers and also, I'm trying to remember, it's not quite the right headline, but it was basically, from memory, it was a psychologist who was talking about not talking down to people with different views than you on anti-vaccination. And I mean, there may well be people in the audience right now. And I would say that it's not about sort of saying, oh, you're stupid for believing this, but actually trying to engage and find what is the area of concern? What are you? And there may have some legitimate concerns in terms of maybe they're compromised or there may be something that is a legitimate concern and then looking for genuine ways to engage. There will also be people who just want to shout on any topic, but yeah, if you Google, you will find and certainly look on the conversation. You'll find a number of articles on that topic. Fantastic. Look, I think that we've come to the end of our questions over here. So it has been an absolutely fascinating conversation and there has been a couple of people who've said that they loved it tonight and they just want to hear more of this sort of thing. There is one last late question coming in, which I will ask. Surely targeting public health personnel in local government and community health services would assist experts messages encountering anti-vaxxers. So public health personnel and local government and community health services should be getting this message out a bit more clearer, I think is what Angela is saying. Yeah, and experts engaging with those individuals being the ones who actually have that direct health exposure to the community and many universities are doing that, providing that sort of educational framework. So it's a very good point. And Angela, just to follow up on that, I would say that the conversation is, our readership is actually surprisingly broad. It's everyone from kind of all walks of life, including people who work in policy, I think from memory about 10% of our onsite audiences in health. So we are actually, the conversations we're having are everyone from the general public, two policy makers were often quoted in both the federal parliament in Australia, but also the beehive, we've had a number of people pick up on articles. So it is really important to have that cross-pollination of ideas and be respectful in how we do it too. And I would make one last point because you should never take anything, any media outlet publishes on trust alone. So one of the most important things that we do, and I wish happened in more media, is that you can look on all of our articles at the disclosures. And so it actually has, if people have conflicts of interest there, and so you can look at people's profiles, go to Paul Young, nobody's talking about that they have background in this, but also their disclosures too. So I would encourage you to, the more we can encourage people to be critical consumers of media and not just click and go, oh, someone said this, that's also a really important thing. But I suspect most of you are already doing that, but encouraging your friends and others to do that, and not just the conversation, but other credible places too. Thank you again so much for joining us tonight. And thank you Molly for all your hard work on the book and David and Paul too. Thank you to Avid Reader, we've run heaps of events with you guys for probably going on almost as long as the conversation has been around over the past decade. And we always love doing it. So we hope to do more of it. For anyone tuning in from New Zealand, we hope to do either a yearbook launch event or something in the new year with Finlay McDonald, who's based in Auckland and also Veronica Medina, who's in Wellington. We hope him to do more too. So thank you so much for joining us. And any last thank yous from you Chrissy, anyone else? Just thanks to you Liz, this has been really fascinating and we do love our collaborations with you. It's always really interesting. And thanks to you guys for coming along and being the experts on our panel because it has been an absolute joy to host you. I am going to open the room now, crazy, but I'm gonna open the room so people can unmute themselves for a final clap. This could all end in chaos. So if either of you want to say anything before this happens, I'm happy to take final comments before I do this. Michio Ketchel, our bosses, has tuned in, hello. I just want to say thank you for organising this. It's absolutely brilliant and it's really important to get these sorts of stories out there. Fantastic. I'm agreeing more. All right, okay, I'm opening the room so you can unmute yourselves now. And I'm gonna suggest that we put our hands together for a final round of applause for you guys and for the conversation in general. We really adore your work and we need you more. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Excellent. Thanks, everyone. See you later. Bye. Bye.