 Thank you so much, Jeff, and good to see you all. And thank you once again, Jeff, for co-hosting this series of webinars, along with parliamentarians for the Global Goals, and with the honorary president of the IPU, Gabriella Cuevas, who is also joining us today. So thank you for that. And thank you for your introductory remarks. I think that really frames the discussion that we will have here today with parliamentarians joining us from all over the world. We are, for this first webinar in the series, focusing on, I guess, the issue that is on top of mind of all parliamentarians, all decision makers in the world right now, of course, the pandemic, and how to deal with that politically. And not least, how to make sure that we leave no one behind along the lines of the principles of the 2030 agenda. This is, of course, a critical time for everyone, either where you are in the world. The challenges may be different, but there are also similarities. And I think, Jeff, you just pointed out some of those things that should be on the list of all decision makers all over the world. So thank you for that. And just to briefly go through the program, we will now have our panelists give their presentations. So we have allowed you eight minutes per panelist. And I really encourage everyone to stick to that, because we have experience from the previous webinars that our participants are eager to also speak and to talk about their own experiences from their countries. So we will move in a minute to the panel. And then we will have, for the last half of the webinar, a moderated discussion where we encourage everyone who is joining us today to speak about their experience and the current situation in their country in relation to dealing with the pandemic and leaving no one behind. And we encourage you also to share concrete examples of parliamentary action that you may pass on to your colleagues in the rest of the world who are joining us today. So we really hope for this to be a peer-to-peer discussion amongst parliamentarians to share their experience and ideas. We will move now to the panel. And it is my great pleasure to first introduce Peter Hortes, who is the Dean of the National School of Social Medicine and a professor of pediatric molecular biology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. And Peter is also co-chairing the Lancet COVID-19 Commission Task Force on COVID-19 Vaccines in the Republic, the Lancet Commission where the sex is carrying the commission. So Peter, it's a great pleasure and honor to have you with us today and the floor is yours. Well, thank you so much. Kirsten, it's an honor to be here. And it's always an honor to be linked with Jeffrey Sachs, where I'm always inspired by his remarks. I'm going to give a brief overview on the vaccine landscape. First, let me just briefly comment on where I think we're headed globally, as well as in the United States. The new spike protein mutants are clearly having a huge impact. And now we're actually learning why. It's really quite extraordinary that a single amino acid substitution in the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein going from an asparagine to an aromatic amino acid, a tyrosine, which is causing ring-ring interactions and tight binding. That's giving rise to the major variants that give us greatest pause for concern. The ones coming out of the United Kingdom, the ones coming out of South Africa, and elsewhere. And it's really impressive how what a global disruptor, a single minor chemistry change can cause. And now the variants are spreading rapidly. And the world is scrambling on top of scrambling prior to this. With respect to vaccines, most of the current vaccines are expected to work against the UK variant, but not in every case against the South African variant. And we'll talk about what that means. The biggest concern that I have is that there has been so much emphasis on innovation and focusing on the need to create innovative novel vaccines that the novelty came at the expense of having low-cost, affordable, and accessible vaccines. So what do I mean by that? Well, I'm concerned that the two mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer may not be scalable to the extent we need and will not have a major role in the world's low and middle income countries. The Merck, interesting live virus vaccines using VSV and measles backgrounds, they've dropped out. The Sanofi vaccine is excessively delayed. And it's not clear what role that's going to have, the same one for Queensland. And when you start moving down the list, you suddenly realize that there's not a lot out there really for the world's low and middle income countries. We have the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine that's being made by the Serum Institute of India. We have the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Potentially, it's not clear if the Novavax vaccine is going to be scalable to the extent that we need and produced at the scale that we need. So far, we have the two adenovirus vaccines. Then we have an inactivated vaccine from Borat Biotech and Hyderabad and two or three recombinant protein vaccines. We have ours prepared by Biological E, Bio E, and also in Hyderabad, Metacago in Canada, and Clover, which has a component in China. And then maybe some of the inactivated virus vaccines also coming out of China and then the Russian Gamalaya vaccine. And the issue with the Russian and the Chinese vaccines is they are currently not been released through what the WHO calls stringent regulatory authorities or through WHO pre-qualification. So there are some questions there. And as a consequence, we have very few choices now available and not a lot of funding to scale those up. So for instance, with our recombinant protein vaccine, which can now be made, it's now being made at 1.2 billion doses by Biological E, to get that launched, we had to build on our 10-year program of coronavirus vaccines. And it was quite interesting. I found we found our group without any funds to produce the yeast strain that needed to go to Biological E. So we wound up having to raise a million dollars from a local distillery, Tito's vodka, and a million dollars from a local foundation in Texas and eventually put together $5 million from local donors in order to make that happen. So all of the talk about COVAX and CEPI and all of these financial instruments that were supposed to be in place all kind of pushed very hard towards what I sometimes in my frustration called the shiny new toys, which are unclear whether how much of that's really going to filter to low and middle income countries. So that's something that really has to be discussed at a frank level, not in an accusatory way, but to prepare for what's about to come, which are the spike protein variants. As I said, I think all of the vaccines will work equally well against the UK variant. But I am concerned about the South African variant, where we've seen so far that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not protecting against moderate infections against the South African variant. And that was one we were really counting on. And maybe it'll have some protection against severe infection. We don't know that yet. But one of the big worries that I have with the South African variant, whereas so far Sub-Saharan Africa has done quite well in terms of COVID-19 compared to other parts of the world we think, although a lot of that may be due to under-reporting as well, what's going to happen if the South African variant really accelerates and starts to cause levels of morbidity and mortality that in Africa that we've seen elsewhere in the world that's really unclear who's going to come in and provide those vaccines or how maybe ours can boost the AstraZeneca vaccine to produce one that will work. So despite all best-intentioned efforts, we're still somewhat bereft of opportunities to vaccinate the world's low and middle-income countries. And I think in moving forward, and we'll talk about this at the discussion, it's going to be very important to look at why we emphasize so much the major pharmaceutical companies and not enough the group that calls themselves the Developing Country Vaccine Manufacturers Network, which in the end of the day is providing that core support in order to make the vaccines the world needs. And so I think having a frank discussion about that would be extremely helpful. I think before I end, another issue that I think we should also talk about is the fact that we do have a globalizing anti-science empire that really began out of Texas where I live and work under this banner of health freedom or medical freedom and quickly got tied to political extremism on the far right, where it was ultimately linked with QAnon and added tacked on not only an anti-vaccine movement but also an anti-mask and anti-social distancing movement, which was then expanded to European capitals last year. And we saw protests, anti-vaccine, anti-mask protests in Berlin where there was an attempt to storm the Reichstag in Trafalgar Square in London and in Paris and Italy. And this has now become a full-on anti-science initiative or confederacy or empire, depending on the term you want to use. And so far, the major agencies have not really shown an appetite for confronting this in a substantive way beyond fine-tuning our message, amplifying our message, but not really taking down the empire. And then we have to deal with this very unpleasant aspect, which includes it's being amplified a lot by the Russian government and a well-documented program of weaponized health communication that's been highlighted by US and British intelligence. And this also is contributing to our problem with vaccinating the world. And we're going to have to have a frank assessment and discussion about that. And then finally is the fact that even if we can work away around these variants, we have to remember that coronaviruses are going to be here for a long time. We've had SARS in 2002, 2003. We've had mayors in 2012. And that's why we got involved with coronavirus vaccines because we knew a third one was coming. And then right on cue, we've had COVID-19. And now we'll have the variants, which are acting very much like us almost like a new epidemic. And then on top of that, we should expect COVID-26 and COVID-32. So this is going to be a new reality for us. So I'll stop there and hope that we can have a lot of time for a productive discussion. So thank you, Jeff, and Kirsten again. Thank you so much, Peter, for your incredibly insightful news and status of the vaccine situation and also the worries there. Jeff, do you have a remark for this? Yes. Just to thank Peter. Thank you, Jeff. Great. Thank you so much, Peter. So relevant to have this information for parliamentarians who are making decisions about this in their countries right now. So there is a question in the chat about translation. We are very fortunate today to have translation to Spanish and English. And this is thanks to Speaker Cesar Letado, who is the president of the National Assembly of Ecuador. He sponsored this interpretation to Spanish today. So we're very grateful for that. Unfortunately, we don't have interpretation into other languages. This time, we will be working on that for future webinars. But we're very grateful to be able to offer Spanish-English translation today. The next panelist, I am very pleased to welcome Ricardo Baptista Leit, who is a doctor by training and a member of the Portuguese Parliament since 2011. And Ricardo is also the founder of UNITE, Global Palantirants Network to End HIV-AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, and Other Infectionless Diseases. It's a global platform of current and former policymakers created on the auspices of UN AIDS and committed to ending these global health threats in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals. And Ricardo, we're very pleased that you're with us today as well. The floor is yours. Thank you, Kirsten, and thank you, Jeff, and also thank you, Gabrielle, because of you that I'm also here. And it's a great pleasure to be amongst such bright minds, being able to discuss these important issues that will inevitably, I think, condition our work as representatives of the people in the years to come, and to which we have a major obligation to respond properly and accordingly to what the people need. I'm here on behalf of UNITE, which is a global network of parliamentarians, as was mentioned. We were founded in 2017. And our network has always aimed to work on ending infectious diseases as a global health threat. Well, three years ago, when we would speak to people pitching the importance of pandemic preparedness and response, I can say, the interest was a little bit less than we get today. And this means that there is an opportunity here for finally to achieve the kind of reform and change that we need not only for pandemic preparedness and response, but also for approaching global health at large, which, of course, inevitably includes communicable diseases. I personally am a member of parliament here in Portugal and trained in infectious disease as a physician, actually having gone back since the beginning of the pandemic to the hospital as a volunteer while maintaining my role at the university and in parliament. And I think that it has been extremely important to see the roles of parliamentarians of understanding their position at being at the interface between the people and governmental power, making sure that the funding that is needed is secured, making sure that people's voices, especially those that are in most vulnerable situations, people that don't have a voice many times, actually get heard because we know in times of crisis and pandemics or others, those that are in most vulnerable situations, sadly, are many times left behind. And we've seen this over and over throughout to global health history, having started very vividly with HIV. But now with COVID-19, I think it becomes very clear to everyone that health safety and health security are prerequisites for economic growth and for global development. And this is something that governments need to understand around the world because without global, without health safety and health security, we won't be able to achieve all of the other goals that we may be aiming for. And what has become very clear also is that reactive health systems that have focused more on disease than on health and well-being of the people tend to fail, especially when put under a stress test. So picking up on what Jeff was saying, looking at the value for the money we're putting into health systems, we need to change the way we prepare and develop our health systems on the ground with the kind of reform that is needed to make sure that we are more focused on promoting healthy populations, healthy lifestyles, and preventing all the preventable diseases that are out there. The truth is health and well-being of a population is like money in a bank. If you're well off, you really don't think about that money that much. But when a crisis hits, you're going to need it. And if you don't have a healthy population, if the well-being of your population is already substandard when the crisis hits, you will be hit the most. And that is what we are seeing also with COVID-19, sadly, the most vulnerable populations, once again, are the ones being left behind. And this leads to the discussion around global health and what can we do about it? Well, a friend of mine, Michael Weinstein, many times says that if we were to control and regulate global health, air traffic control the way we do with global health, we would see a plane crash every five hours. And that's the truth. If given the current frameworks that we have in terms of global health, we are not prepared to deal with responding adequately in terms of cross-border biological threats. And I'm just talking about responding. I'm not even speaking about preventing or even preparing for. And that means we have a lot of work to do. There's a lot of discussion then, what can we do about it? And as parliamentarians, we have to take forefront in that discussion. I personally feel that we need to focus more on making sure that on the ground in each country that we are capable of developing the skill set and the institutions bringing together not only health authorities, but also other related authorities from defense and civil protection so that they can work together in terms of making sure that we do the proper simulations when we do not deal with a crisis or pandemic and that we are capable of responding when they do it. But moreover, we need to have global coordinated control of all of the country's actions. And if we think about it from a military perspective in post-World War II, that's in a way why in the North American and North Atlantic region we created NATO in the sense of making sure that we were capable of having different countries prepared but capable of working together. And NATO for health, if you will. And such a response would be needed at a global level, not just a regional level, where every country could pitch in, making sure that we were capable of responding adequately but sharing more information, being capable of detecting earlier potential biological threats. I think it is consensual between all of us that COVID-19 as a pandemic, as it has become, was avoidable if we had been able to early detect and contain this threat that is undermining our social and economic well-being across the globe. So that being said, there is a role for everyone. There's a role for every parliament, while the role of G20 and G7 countries specifically can take the leading role. As was mentioned before, the IMF and the World Bank also have an important role. I'm the vice chair of the Parliamentary Network of the World Bank and IMF, where we are facing and dealing with these issues and trying to push these issues forward. But we need to do more. And working between UNITE and the Parliamentary Network of the World Bank and IMF, we're also pushing for COVAX to make sure that we get the additional billions that are missing in terms of funding, because as was said, if we do not vaccinate the whole of the world, we will all be left behind. But we also need to think in terms of research and innovation. We saw amazing advancements in terms of vaccine development. But the truth is, this crisis has also showed that we have not invested enough in terms of research and development, in terms of vaccine production and distribution. We need innovation in also these fields, because that is a true bottleneck when it comes to distributing vaccines at a price that is achievable for everybody across the globe in a timely manner, because time is of essence. If we do not vaccinate the world sooner than what we are currently predicting, those variants that we just heard about will just continue to grow and will ultimately undermine our efforts in terms of global vaccination. I'd like to end just by saying that there are many things that parliamentarians can do. These are some at the global multilateral level, but also at the local level, being capable when those parliamentarians have health advice that they can be given working through university or as myself as a volunteer, or in other fields, like Esther Pasarys, who is a parliamentarian from Kenya, the chair from Eastern South Africa, who is working to make sure that essential goods are being delivered where they are needed, including essential medicines for other infectious diseases to populations that have been isolated given the COVID crisis and the problems that they're seeing on their supply chains. Or as Senator Pia Caetano in the Philippines, who is currently the chair at the Senate Committee on Sustainable Development Goals, and she's our chair for Asia Pacific. Or Andrew Ullmann, member of parliament in Germany, who is the vice chair of the Global Health Committee at the German Bundestag, who has been able to push for many important changes in their policy in rising budgetary allocation for HIV or putting neglect for tropical disease on the agenda. At large, and we have, of course, Gabrielle Gueves in her current role now as co-chair of the UHC 2030. Parliamentarians are doing such an extraordinary job on the ground. And we need to come together, especially to focus on the sustainable development goals. We have a decade to go, and I'm already hearing too many voices among governments and also parliamentarians saying it's not achievable anymore. This is something that we need to give up because given the COVID crisis, there's not enough money. There's not enough commitment. We're focusing on other fronts. And what we as parliamentarians, especially us, that have positions of leadership in multilateral organizations, we need to make our voice very clear. The SDGs now are more important than ever. They are the beacon that will lead us through this decade to come in terms of social and economic crises to make sure that we comply with exactly what we promised to do in 2015, which is not leave anyone behind. Now more than ever, this is, I believe, truth that is one that we need to fight for. It is our moral obligation to make sure that coming out of this crisis, we are capable of building back better, as many have said, of making sure that our health systems, our response systems, our prevention and preparedness mechanisms towards pandemics are better off. But also our social and economic response learns from the mistakes of the past. It is a moral obligation. It is the challenge of our lives. And as parliamentarians, we have this unique opportunity to lead. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ricardo. That is so well put. And thank you for your leadership within health, within the SDGs in your country and globally. I think this is an example to be followed. And thank you so much for your wonderful remarks. We will now move to the next panelist, Mr. Kilian Kleinsmith, who has over 25 years hands-on experience in international development, emergency response, resource mobilization, and has worked with a number of organizations, countries, and programs. He is the founder and chairman of IPA, Innovation and Planning Agency that specializes in identifying resources globally and matching them with the needs of disadvantaged regions. And I guess this is exactly what we need at this very critical time. So Mr. Kleinsmith, we look very much forward to hearing your remarks. The floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you very much. And well, what an opportunity to speak to all of you. I'm speaking to you from Addis Ababa, where I arrived yesterday, to look into ways forward of dealing exactly with those we don't wish to leave behind in all of this. And based in Tunisia, in Tunis, and also they're involved in issues of migration management, also looking into disadvantaged regions in the country and trying to see of how they can become better connected. But I can tell you I'm pretty concerned. I'm very concerned because in the now 30 years or so of working with populations in distress, populations in war, in crisis, disasters of all sorts, I have rarely seen, especially in countries which I would say on a way upwards, I have rarely seen such a disillusion of the small people, of the people who feel that they're left really behind, especially now. Unemployment rising. The informal sector, which has been the most hard hit in many places, totally disillusioned, not really seeing where it goes forward. This afternoon I visited actually a couple of small and medium enterprises here in Addis Ababa, talking to people. I mean, frankly speaking, nobody was wearing a mask. There was no social distancing. There was no concern as such about the pandemic, as other than saying, well, look, we need to work. We need to move forward. We have contracts. Luckily, again, after first plunge after the beginning of the pandemic, now we need to work. So we can't waste time on other things. In any way, some form of statements were made saying, well, we don't die as much as you, Europeans, you die of the pandemic. A few days ago, I was in southern Tunisia in one of the most disadvantaged regions of the country, pretty dire in the sense of everybody is wanting to get out, and even more so now. And there's really, besides the sort of exisabarition of what has been a problem already before, we're seeing really that people don't hear anything. And then I will be very critical and very direct here, don't hear anything of their leadership, which is really giving them answers. Talking to a man who actually attended one of the demonstrations linked to the anniversary of the revolution in Tunisia, he said, well, we were promised a meager 50, 60 euros a year ago in direct aid for the people in the pandemic. We haven't seen it. We haven't heard about this anymore. So that's why we're here demonstrating. We don't believe in our leadership anymore. We don't believe in a parliament. And I will be also here just reporting what the man told me. We don't believe in a parliament which is more busy with itself than with the real issues of the people. So what I want to come to is that we seem to see a very, very deep divide in a number of countries where people can't even afford the test because it's simply too expensive for a worker's earning even less than the test costs per month. We are really seeing here this divide between those people who, and that's the majority of the populations who don't see any way forward other than eventually moving out, moving away, or taking even other measures. So this is, for me, the moment where a crisis must become opportunity. That's a moment where parliaments, where leaders need to come together and forget for some time about the issues which maybe coalitions and compositions of governments, this is about giving very clear messages. Communicating much clearer is an issue. Trying to be very open about what is the way forward, developing visions, developing very clear plans. That is not something we hear frequently. And that, I think, would be the biggest point. It's not people say, we can survive. We can continue to survive. But please tell us where this journey is going. And of course, that is linked to the bigger game, where is the money coming from? Where are the resources coming from? Where is the access to vaccines? And the environment that I've been in today and also a few days ago in Tunisia, people don't even think about vaccinations. It's so far away from them, but they want to hear that there will be a way forward. So clear communication, a clear getting together of the political leadership, and that includes you, the parliamentarians, of saying, well, this is a crisis. It's as serious as our other challenges linked to climate change, our other challenges linked to a need to reshape our economy. But here we are together, and you, the people, you are the number one. And then I think the voices of those small people need to be heard and listened to need to be promoted. And therefore, that is actually really my appeal. Please do give these messages to people, because otherwise, I don't know where we're going. They don't know where they're going, and they're ready. Many are ready, unfortunately, to move on, move away, and don't believe in the state as such any longer. With these words, I thank you very much. And again, please do listen to the voices of the people. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Klein-Smith, and from that report from the ground. And I think you point to something extremely important in these critical times, that something larger is at stake here as well, that the trust and the lack of trust in decision makers and in representatives. And I think Ricardo also pointed to this moment as an opportunity to reconnect really with your constituents and be that voice or channel for them to make their voices heard. So thank you very much for that, Mr. Klein-Smith. And we will then move to our last panelist, who is Ms. Gabriela Coevas, who, apart from being one of the co-organizers of this webinar series, and the honorary president of the IPU, member of the Mexican Parliament, is also, as Jeff mentioned earlier, and the newly elected co-chair of the UHC 2030 Steering Committee, and the UHC 2030 is a multi-stakeholder platform on health systems strengthening. Gabriela, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kirsten. Thank you, Jeff, for having these webinars again. I think this is an amazing opportunity for parliamentarians to get engaged into the SDGs, but also to have very important inputs and ideas on how to make change happen. We are always reading and ratifying international instruments, but then, as Kylian was mentioning, and Dr. Ricardo, then we have to go back to our constituencies. We have to rebuild trust. We have to come back with solutions. So this time, I would like to speak, perhaps with too many capacities, but I would like to mention three very important documents. The first one, of course, are the SDGs, the 2030 agenda. That's the most important commitment for the world to change. But also, we have two very important documents. One is the UHC 2030 state of commitment and the country profits. I'm going to explain this document. And of course, the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, the statement that Jeff just released, I think it was Jeff today or two days ago, that points very well, which are the priorities for 2021. Perhaps we can post the link in the group chat because I think that's also a very interesting document. That can be very helpful for parliamentarians because there are many important ideas that we can translate through this international perspective into local solutions. And I will go directly to UHC 2030. In September 2019, at the United Nations High-Level Meeting, Universal Health Coverage, moving together to build a healthier world, world leaders endorse the most ambitious and comprehensive political declaration on health in history. And we did the same at the IPU in October the same year. In endorsing those declarations, the world recommended to ensure that by 2030, everyone in every country can receive all the quality health services they need without suffering financial hardship. In assessing the state of UHC commitment at the global and country levels, UHC 2030 has identified eight commitments areas and assesses against these specific commitments, areas to hold leaders to account. The first synthesis was published in December last year, together with 193 country profiles. You can find everything at the UHC 2030 website. Findings show that in many countries, poor and vulnerable groups are being further left behind and the inequities are widening due to the COVID-19 crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic is also exposing and exacerbating witnesses in health systems. You're showing that many governments neglected to invest in health, social safety nets and many governments neglected also to work for emergency preparedness when it really mattered before that crisis struck. Even countries with stronger health systems could have been better prepared for this emergency or whatever other emergency, because this is not going to be the only one. This is, there's still much to be done to ensure adequate support to frontline health workers, to meaningfully engage all stakeholders in decision making and to ensure gender equitable responses. Furthermore, many countries have not adopted measurable national targets and public awareness of government's commitments remains limited. We have eight commitments at UHC 2030. The first one is to ensure political leadership beyond the health. We were talking about trust. Well, this is why political leadership is really needed to commit to achieve UHC for healthy lives and well-being for all at all stages as a social contract. The second one, leave no one behind. That way we are here. Third one, our job description, legislate and regulate. Four, uphold the quality of care. Five, invest more, invest better. Six, move together. And of course, gender equality and emergency preparedness. I would like to go a little bit deeper to the ones that are part of our job description. Regulate and legislate. Expand and strengthen UHC legislation and regulations, set clear targets and communicate better to bring people together. I will use some of the examples that I have seen as an IPU president some months ago, but also now at the UHC 2030. Some countries are not doing anything to be honest in terms of giving really health for all. But some others are having health as a human right in the basic constitutions, but without a national plan or without a real strategy. So many countries have not adopted measurable national UHC targets and public awareness of government commitment to UHC remains limited. One of the key findings for the 2020 UHC survey is that stakeholders are unclear about what constitutes a UHC commitment and what if any commitments that governments have made recently or in the past. In referring to commitments, survey respondents often mentioned references to health in their countries, constitutions or laws or big policies or statements made in meetings or in the media. For example, well, classics, political narrative. If we are not able to translate political narrative into actions, we are only making across the more damage. So we really need to explain and to be very explicit on which are the UHC targets to increase coverage of essential health services or to increase financial protection or have faith to communicate. We need to communicate those targets to stakeholder groups, including of course civil society organizations. We also need to define how are we going to monitor progress towards UHC. As parliamentarians, we need to legislate. We need to be very clear on their concept as a basic human right, but also we need to go to the secondary legislation and to go further, which are the most important policies that are going to be mandated in the legislation. And of course that goes to two very important issues, budget allocation and oversight. And if we are not defining how are we going to monitor progress towards UHC, we are going to be completely lost. But in the 2030 agenda, the SDGs are showing very clear indicators. We have 3.8.1 coverage of essential services and 3.8.2 financial protection. When we go to the other objective that I was mentioning for UHC 2030, there is invest more, invest better. Invest in public health and primary healthcare as a joint effort of health and finance ministers and local governments to ensure the continuity of essential health services and provide the first sliding defense against outbreaks. People want more government spending on health, but tend to overlook public health and preparedness, which are essential public goods. If we go to how governments are spending, well for most of them, the most important allocation budget goes to military and to the army. Well, this pandemic is showing us that one of the most important NMS is a virus and we were not prepared for that. So this is the moment to take a look and to question ourselves on how are we going to allocate our budget? In Mexico, we have a say. True love is only shown in budget, otherwise it's only political, blah, blah, blah. And the third one that I would like to point out among the eighth commitments is moving together, build partnerships through genuine civil society engagement. We are always complaining about how citizens are not part of politics and they are not getting involved, but there's I think a very important side of that and it's how politicians, how parliamentarians are open or not for civil society and to be questioned and involved with organizations and citizens. So we need to understand that the real change in terms of universal health coverage needs to involve everyone. We are having, for example, at UHC, the private companies. We have civil society organizations. We are getting closer to parliamentarians. Of course, we work with governments. We understand that this is teamwork. This universal health coverage needs all of us to be very clear. If we do not make a significant change in access to health, five billion people are going to be left behind by 2030. Five billion people are not going to have access to health or medication. So we need you guys, we need parliamentarians to make a significant change. And again, please take a look to the UHC 2030 state of commitment and the country profiles. The country profiles could be very useful for you and the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, the statement that we published just yesterday, the priorities for 2021. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Gabrielle, and also for your very precise recommendations on how to begin the monitoring and the parliamentary oversight of the commitments that have already been made by many governments around the world. So a very important point there. Thank you so much. And thank you also for your leadership in the universal healthcare movement, Gabriella.