 I'd like now to open Antoine's presentation for discussion and whether there are questions from the audience. I'm looking at the chat, so please whenever you wish to ask a question, go to the chat. I see some questions coming. Let me first ask you, Antoine, would you say that the pandemic has now entered an endemic phase, that is, given the map that you've shown us in one of your first slides, since it's everywhere and since we have no ways of eradicating, are we dealing with a chronic endemic state and in that situation, what are the triggering factors of resurgence of not outbreaks but new waves that have been identified and is there a way to focus on some of these specific factors, be it the density of the population or of course, lack of appropriate measures. Thank you, Michel, for this question and it is a very difficult question. I could say, you know, we do not foresee beyond seven days, so there is no endemic situation within seven days but only epidemic outbreaks at first. But we could have some scenarios. First, we can also answer to the question, what are the trigger factors because you have seen the four breaks. So, if you lift any of these four breaks, you have a force for an outbreak and for a burst in the search of cases. So, the seasonal break was lifted after the warm season in Europe and it represents the most important factor for generating this outbreak in the fall. And the outbreak in the fall was not at the same force as the outbreak in March. The R, you know, the reproductive rate was not three, was 1.5 below 1.5. So, that was probably due to another break, which was the protective measures, the mask wearing, mandate mask in both countries in Europe and also the physical distance and hand washing, which play an important role to reduce that. So, will it become endemic after the vaccine? I don't know. What I can say is, you know, if the vaccine is administered to high-risk groups, particularly the vulnerable, the elderly people and also the at-risk people, it may transform dramatically the prognosis of the disease. And if you have a disease, which is for all the population, like in the Green Zone, I mentioned below 50, it will become a very common cold disease again. And maybe due to that, I mean, without any hospitalization, without any surge in intensive care units, without any death or almost no death due to the COVID-19, it will become much more tragic, even if it is chronic condition. Yeah, thank you very much. Important comments so that we should be able to develop the tools to prevent high mortality in high-risk groups and have this disease no more a threat, a public threat for at serious level, but something that we can live with. You know, related to this discussion, I see a question from Stanislas Cozon. He's saying, it seems that demography would be a likely driver. How close are we from being pretty sure that this is the case? Of course, demography is a key factor in terms of severity and in terms of mortality. So it's understandable that when you have a very young country, you have more protection against mortality and severe cases because of that. What is not clear is if the young segment of the population is a driver of the pandemic, it is possible that school and school age children and students are a key driver of the pandemic in terms of spreading, not in terms of severity, not in terms of search in hospitals, but in terms of spreading within the community is highly probable that the young segment of the population are the driver of the pandemic. Thank you. There are two questions around Africa. So maybe Assi and Juliette would like to ask questions. Yes, Assi. Yeah, thank you very much. In Antoine introduced Africa by saying it's a gray zone. Well, we have to define what the gray zone is. And I heard a number of factors that seem to be playing a role there. And you mentioned demography with a question mark. You mentioned cross-immunity to the question mark. You mentioned climate to the question mark. You mentioned even race and blackness with the question mark. But I've not heard anything about what Africans are doing. You know, is it shouldn't it be also considered that people are not just sitting and waiting for those factors, you know, to be determined and self-protected, but also people responding? There was action, you know, taken. And how much, you know, that action also has contributed to that. And that is not referred to one single time. You know, measures that are extremely difficult, that are powerful, that's been taken in very difficult contexts and under very difficult circumstances. You know, religious leaders close mosques and churches. Markets, you know, were closed, you know, in economies where 80% of people rely on an informal sector, you know, to go for a daily living. And the curfews, you know, were imposed on people, you know, many measures, we can think if it happened in many countries in Europe, we'll then leave for rebellion, you know, or a kind of a public to live more as you would say. But I think, you know, we can not simply, you know, look at Africa as a gray zone where there are a number of factors that may be contributing or not, you know, to the millions of deaths that we may or may not see. But I think it would be helpful to also understand what are the kind of accumulated experience in preparing for and responding to pandemics and epidemics over time. And the measures that have been taken and made are contributed to that and conserved, you know, for further action and incentive for Africa and for the rest of the world. And I'm missing that fact. Every time we're talking about, you know, the response, it is just a passive, you know, kind of a waiting for protective factors and other things. We need to correct that. Thank you. Thank you, Asin. Of course, Senegal is quite an example when one talks about public action. Maybe, Antoine, before you answer, let's hear from Juliette Tuakli that has also a question relating to Africa. Juliette? Yes, thank you. Looking at the slides, I totally agree with the previous speaker, by the way, but then that comes to the other issue of climatic changes. Given what you've said, would we therefore expect in the upcoming harm-at-tent season, which we're about ready to enter, an upsurge in our COVID incidents? Because I think that would prove whether or not that, in fact, pertained to Africa as well as in the West, which alludes to my other concern. And that is, I think there are some social behaviors that we tend to ignore, smoking being one of them. Much of the parts of Africa which have been spared are generally non-smoking. And those parts of the continent, despite their high GDP, despite their strong public health systems, tend to have a much higher proportion of people engaging in behaviors that compromise their respiratory systems. Thank you, Antoine. Yes, thank you very much for this comment. I fully share with you your comments, Mr Asi, on the fact that the level of answers of response was huge, impactful, impactful in many other aspects than the sanitary one. And it has to be taken into account. I will also suggest or maybe suspect that there are some contributing factors in Africa which is outdoor life, which is probably more important than in European or Northern countries. So the fact that people are ventilating their respiratory system at a higher pace also may contribute to help blocking the pandemic. Regarding the question of smokers, I will say it is controversial for the moment because, as you mentioned, definitely smoking alters the respiratory functions and should play a negative role on COVID. But it has not been seen as a risk factor. Surprisingly, I'm not talking about COPD. I'm not talking about the consequence of chronic smoking habits which have deteriorates the respiratory functions, which is a risk factor. But smoking has been found as a protective factor for COVID-19 surprisingly, meaning that those in the series which has been studied in China, in Europe or in the USA, there are fewer smokers in COVID series and even in severe cases than in the population. So it's something which seems to be a bit strange that maybe nicotine could play a role in protecting people. It has not been scientifically clearly demonstrated, although I know that there are some trials using a non- using a patch of nicotine or electronic cigarettes to see if there are an effect against COVID-19. But so it's controversial, it's conflicting and not so clear that the fact that low smoking in Africa could be protective. Well, we're talking about Africa. Since we will move in the next panel session to global governance and global issues that are the core of this conference, although, Antoine, you told us that you don't want to predict even in the midterm what will be happening. It seems to me that there are fairly, let's call them stable, quote, stable patterns of the epidemic in different regions of the world that is regional patterns. Would you agree with this? And if so, do you think this should have implications for bringing a regional governance level to global governance of health in addition to the global solidarity and cooperation effort that is required? It's, yes, it's such a good question. I would be very cautious regarding the stable patterns. For instance, Austria, Germany, Switzerland had expressed a very good response for the first wave in Europe. It was not so too for the second wave. Austria and Switzerland in particular had among the worst incidents in Europe. Norway and Finland behaved as champions in Europe, almost the same patterns as in Asia for the first wave. But now they're experiencing a search a bit delayed from the search experience in southern Europe. So I don't know exactly how it will go to. So for the moment, it's true that Asia experienced a very, very good response in terms of incidents and mortality. When you see that in Taiwan, 24 million people, there are seven deaths, accumulated deaths from the beginning of the pandemic. When they are so close to the continent and China, you can see that they have a very, very good response. And Japan is not far. It's not completely sure that they will keep the pace of the whole pandemic. So it's a bit early. And when I say I don't want to predict too long, it's also with that. It's a bit early to be sure that they will not experience a search. And for Africa, I so much hope that they will not have to face the trouble the Latin America countries or India experienced recently. But who can predict that it will not happen? Fortunately, they not happen never. And maybe the vaccine will be before anything can happen. But who can know? And I think it's better to keep some protections and some modesty also on these protections. Thank you very much. I hope we return to this issue of regional global later. There is a specific question from Alexandre de Germais on the spreaders. Alexandre, would you? Yeah, thank you, Michel Professor Flavo. Thanks for your interesting perspective. I had a question on the spreaders. Do we have a way to better identify those spreaders? And do you know if we are running real-world evidence studies somewhere to actually narrow down some characteristics of those spreaders? Because it would, of course, allow us to focus our attention around the spreaders so that we don't stop or block our overall society. Yes, thank you for your question. I think we should not have a too much romantic view of these super spreaders. I mean, the Japanese approach, you know, was a parsimonious approach initially. It was because of a shortage in testing that they decided to on the super spreaders. And the pragmatic approach mentioned that it is very hard to find the one, the super spreader. And now there are more talking about super spreading events. So we can know that you attended to a wedding party or to a dinner in a restaurant which was put on the table, or to, you know, a court in a church. And during this event, you have been contaminated and some others also. And we are more focusing on the event rather than on the person. But sometimes it has been possible to identify these persons, and they are like you and me. I mean, anyone can become a super spreader if it is contagious, at a contagious phase of his disease, of his infection, sometimes four is mostly before the symptoms occur. In the two days before, highly contagious in a closed, poorly ventilated room, which can be in a bathtub, which can be a core, which can be a restaurant or a bar or an auditorium. So that is more the environment where you are placed in, I would say at the time where you were the most contagious that you were triggering the wedding event. Thank you. I see two other questions from Stanislas Cozon and Michael van den Berg, but I think they may come better at a later point in our discussion after we hear from from our panelists. So thank you, Antoine, for, as I said, setting the scene.