 You're very welcome to our YPN session on access to COVID-19 vaccines. My name is Dara Mayati. I work in communications and research here at the Institute. I'm delighted to be chairing this session this afternoon. And we've had two distinguished speakers with us, Manon Elbury MEP and Jim Clark and of Oxfam. I'm going to introduce both of them in a moment. I suppose the topic at hand today is very, very pressing across the western industrialized world. We continue to widely vaccinate our populations. The young and old, the sick and the healthy. There's a menu of options available for us, whether it's Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Janssen. There's all manner of vaccines available to us in the west. Full disclosure, I myself am 26 and healthy, no one knowing conditions. And I walked into my local pharmacy on Tuesday and got my vaccine. All the while hundreds of millions of people across the world are nowhere near getting their COVID-19 vaccine, very vulnerable and very sick people. As the WHO has repeatedly warned, we are on course to create a two track pandemic. We already have created one, in fact, and richer countries are on one side and poorer countries on the other. Delighted today to welcome two speakers who are going to share their thoughts on this very important topic. Let me first introduce Manon Elbury. Manon is a French MEP representing La France de Soumy following her election in May 2019. She currently serves as co-leader of the European United Left, Nordic Green Left Group in the European Parliament, GUA NGL. And she's a member of the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee and its subcommittee on tax. She previously worked for Oxfam France and she also lectured in Human Rights at Stennis Pope. Tom Clarkin is CEO of Oxfam Ireland and he's also an executive director of Oxfam International. He's been a founding member of the People's Vaccine Alliance, stopped on the chaos and the Irish Coalition for Business and Human Rights, as well as the Irish Refugee and Migration Coalition. He's also a former chair of DOCAS. He's an adult professor in the School of Business and Law at UCC, a board member of Cork University Business School and a regular contributor to several university programs. Deloitte today to be joined by both of them. Thanks again to the pair of you for taking your time this evening to be with us. Just in terms of format for our audience, each speaker is going to give us an initial five minutes or so of introduction, setting the scene of what they think Europe is doing in the area of access to COVID-19 vaccines. We would like to hear from you. So please do submit your questions throughout the session using the Zoom Q&A function. You can also get involved in discussion on Twitter using the handle ask by IEA and hashtag YPN. Manon, I'll go to you first. Thank you very much for joining us. The floor is yours. Thanks for the invitation and thanks for bringing up the issue because I have to say, and I'm sure Jim will agree with me, for a long period of time, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, we felt a little bit on our own trying to bring up the issue of trips waiver. And there were only a couple of NGOs and a couple of policymakers bringing in the issue. And from the beginning, there was just like, okay, this race to get the vaccines. But at the end, the race was just somehow the end. We find the vaccines and then we don't question the way we actually distribute it and the capacity to ensure that everyone around the world will have access to vaccines. And a year later or a year and a half later, you know, we thought that we were close to getting out of the crisis, but every time the virus is coming back like a boomer. And the reason why it's coming back and, you know, we started to have the Indian variant and then the Southern African variant, etc. And we can go all around the world and now we even stop calling them by the countries which I think is a good idea because we shouldn't blame them. The ones that we should blame are actually the pharmacotical companies that, you know, keep the monopoly over the prediction of the vaccines and immediate results. Obviously is that they aren't enough vaccines for everyone around the world. So of course we, and I think there's an economic argument there but the first and foremost argument for a trip waiver is just efficiency. If we do not vaccinate the entire world, more or less at the same time or within a short period of time, then the we all know already that the virus is going to evolve. And maybe it's not going to be resistant to vaccine by the way, and then the virus is going to keep spreading with all of the consequences that we know on our daily life. So, for me, there's a first argument which is just like a medical argument. And this is why, by the way, you the WHO and a lot of scientists have been pushing for a trip waiver, because if those pharmacotical companies are keeping the monopoly over the production of vaccines. Well then for sure, we don't use all of the capacities that we have around the world, and we don't produce enough vaccines for everyone. And especially the ones who don't have access to vaccines, we all know they're mostly in poor countries. I don't have the latest data in mind but I'm sure Jim has it in terms of the percentage of the vaccines that have been produced going to the richest countries versus the production going to poor countries. So there's like barely maybe 1% of African that have been vaccinated, and we can compare it to the 50% of Americans are close to 40% now of Europeans, and that raises only it's always rich countries winning it. The second issue I would like to touch upon in this introduction is obviously the economic issue. As long as those pharmacotical companies keep the monopoly over the production. We also keep the choice of the price that they're producing it because everyone, every country desperately needs access to vaccines. And as a result, well we've seen already Pfizer increasing the price of their vaccine from 12 to 90 euros the dose and even more in the latest contract with the European Union, which is by the way an issue because as European member of the European as member of the European Union, we don't even have access to the full contract that we're signing. And we should remember to do so we think that, and to do so we think that, you know, it's just like a sort of fair return to to do companies that have been made through that have been investing money, but one should remember that all of those vaccines have been paid with public money, your money, my money, state money, and it's therefore fair to say, Well, since it's been paid by public money, this should be a public good. That's why this, this vaccine should be made a public good and trips should be waived, and it's not normal to make profits over the pandemic. And that's why we've been, you know, supporting the campaign at European level, supporting European Jews, supporting as well the petition at European level. And when I see that you know the CEO of Moderna, for example, the CEO being French, Moderna being one of the leading big farmer companies. When I see that now is one of the richest persons in the world. And at the same times, millions of people who still don't have access to vaccines. And there's a big issue there. So, and, and I'm not even talking about all of the other pharmaceutical companies that increased a lot their profits. Pfizer only. This is more than three billions of euros and of course, a big part of a big chunk of this money just going to the pockets of the shareholders of those companies. But, so I think these two, these two issues are the two main arguments why we're fighting for trips for waiver for a long period of time we've been fighting a little bit on our own, trying to bring up the issue in the European Parliament. I was asking on behalf of my group, the left group in the parliament for more than 10 times this issue to be voted in the parliament and eventually a bit more than months ago, we managed to have an official position of the European Parliament, calling the European Commission for to to to to for trips waiver. And fortunately, we know that the European Commission is is ready for the position of the European Council and EU member states and we know that they haven't been that progressive in the negotiation in the world trade organization that Jim might like to touch upon. I'm going to stop there to respect the time, and I'm happy to answer any question because a lot to say based on this. Brilliant. Manon, thanks very much for for that initial introduction. And, James, I'll go to you next, and, and, and again, just, you know, 47 minutes to be great, and then we get straight into the discussion and I already see a couple of questions coming in so please do for any questions and we look forward to taking them once finished. Thanks very much. Go ahead, Jim. Great, Dara. And thanks very much and thanks Manon as well. And I'm going to compliment a lot of what Manon has said. I suppose first of all, you know, we're all delighted and amazed at the pace at which vaccines were created. It's a scientific extraordinary breakthrough. And, and I think in this part of the world we're almost getting a sense that somehow we're reaching the end of the pandemic it's kind of come into that point opening up and all the other kind of things. Now we're near the truth. I mean the, there are about 100,000 people dying of COVID-19 every week in countries that don't have access to vaccines just 0.2% of vaccines have been distributed to low income countries, and we're saying that nine out of 10 people in those countries will not be vaccinated this year. In fact, the Economics, Economist Intelligence Unit estimates that it'll be 2023 2024 before there's mass immunization of the global population. And then if you compare that with this part of the world that hasn't has bought up more vaccines than it could possibly use or need. And, you know, this it's stark the level of inequality that has that has arisen from this and what it has done, both from a global north, south point of view and also within countries, it's exacerbated kind of very stark inequalities that have already existed, particularly health inequalities and income inequalities and so on. And, you know, and what Manon's point about, you know, even from a self interest perspective, you know, if we allow this pandemic to continue, variants will continue to progress and develop unless we get our hands around this thing and properly the global population, that's what's going to happen. And, you know, the, there's even the economic argument I mean we, the International Chamber of Commerce has reported that a best case scenario that if, if this part of the world is fully vaccinated over the course of this year, the economic loss, because of poor countries being impacted will be about $9 trillion, which will also affect this part of the world so it's it's a, you know, that's not the reason to do it the reason to do it is because it's a justice issue it's a fairness issue it's an equality issue, but even from a self interest perspective, it makes no sense not to vaccinate the world the bottom line here is, we just don't have enough vaccines, that's it. And, you know, we, you know, we're now seeing a third wave hitting African countries. You know we work in many, as you know, developing countries across the world in Yemen, where there's a conflict over the last seven years, and only 10 to 20% of health systems, which were basic enough to begin with are actually completely overwhelmed by this. So it's, you know, it's, it's a huge problem in the global south, and it's not going to go away and it's going to affect everybody, just in specifically in relation to the EU's response. And, you know, they're, they're talking about donating vaccines to covax and so on. You know, the bottom line is, is we need justice not charity. It's not crumbs from the table, whatever, whatever we're, whatever's left over after we're done with it, we give to those people over there. It's, it's, it's a highly disrespectful and, and damaging and, and wrong. And ultimately, the, the trips waiver it from, from our perspective is the only way that we can resolve this it's the only way to, to ratchet up scale up production at a mass scale which is what's required and the, the five or six companies that currently produced the vaccine don't have enough capacity. They're not sharing it with others. As Manon rightly said, this and this capacity and intellectual property was developed largely on the back of public money. So it has to be a public good. You know, you know, there is there's a counter argument about, you know, pharmaceutical companies investing so much of their own money and so on and look there is a, there's a wider question about how we develop drugs period how do we develop drugs for for public good into the future, and not, you know, unfairly putting all of the burden and risk on pharmaceuticals, but in this instance that was not the case. The burden and risk was taken by the public purse by all of us. And as a result, the result, the outcome should be shared by all of us. And it's not like these pharma companies are not going to make enormous profits as Manon said look one of the, one of the leaders is one of the richest people in the world and we've seen and this will go on for years so they will they will make dramatic profits but they don't have to do it at the cost of millions of lives and livelihoods across the world. So this is, you know, this is the argument for it. It has been, you know, the European Union's position has been very disappointing and very disappointing, very disappointing that Ireland has stuck with that line we've seen member countries in France and Spain and Italy, who are vocal and supporting the trips the trips waiver. And it's, it's been progressed by South Africa and India, there are over 100 countries who are supporting it now, including the US which one ordinarily wouldn't have expected Europe to be a bit more progressive and but still Ireland and the EU are holding their holding their ground and you know the the kind of arguments that they're putting forward and for this are spurious and and you could drive a train through them to be perfectly honest. I mean this idea that and the pharmaceutical companies won't keep innovating. You know, or that the trips waiver will somehow end the end the way we develop medication but there's a question about whether that should happen or not but second of all, this is a once in a not in a lifetime once in 100 years event. And there is precedence by the way. I mean the HIV AIDS global crisis was brought under control and you know it's still it's still a big issue in many countries but it was brought under control. Because the intellectual property for the ARVs was shared with manufacturing companies in developing countries were then able to produce drugs that were affordable to people. You know we lost many many years and many many lives from HIV and AIDS, because those companies didn't do that fast enough. There's a real lesson to be learned from, you know what happened during that period and how we can, how we can change it here. The idea this that there isn't vaccine production capacity is another one that's trotted out. It's not the case. Knowledge economy ecology international has identified at least 144 manufacturing facilities in 35 countries who could be used to manufacture vaccines, they're ready and they're willing all they need is the IP and the intellectual know how to do it. The other one is a which I find very offensive the global south doesn't have the capacity or know how to produce more vaccines our own tarnished Ali over at her has has used that particular line. Very few countries in the global south have the infrastructure know how are the materials to make those vaccines and there's no point in giving somebody a recipe if they don't have the kitchen or the cooking skills are the ingredients. To be honest, you know that that's max of kind of racism as well as everything else if I may be provocative. And you know, India is is one of the leading producers of pharmaceuticals for the entire world is known as the pharmacy to the world, and there are plenty of already vaccines for for covert that are being produced in both India and South Africa so it's it's already happening. And as I say the, you know, we know that that the capacities are there. And again, the covax question that I mentioned, it just, it's, it's, it's a step in the right direction it's it's important that we share whatever surplus vaccines we have of course we should. The answer to the global crisis we have is ratcheting up production to a mass scale to be able to vaccine vaccinate the world population in the next year. It's doable. It's possible, as long as the political will is there. And has rightly so a very laudable reputation at the international stage for global solidarity on so many issues for playing in a very important role at the UN Security Council, and we've done it in so many other spaces. It just doesn't make sense to me why Ireland would would hold this position which is completely contrary to the values of the country and most of us here. Thanks very much for those initial very strong remarks, I think, and I think you've given everybody use this thing in a good bit of food for thought there. And man, and if we can go back to you just on on questions now we're now into Q&A, and just a reminder, we are fully on the record for the entire session but the initial presentations there and the Q&A. So so just just you mentioned you have a million and one things you want to say on this topic. The vote did take place in the European Parliament and it was successful so the European Parliament has come out strongly calling for for the trips waiver. And obviously we had the U-turn by the Biden administration as well. And yes, the European Council continues to hold its position on the member state governments continue to hold their positions. And how do you how likely is it that you know you will force a change there or do you think they will stick to the position very interested here for us in that manner. Well, first word on the vote in the European Parliament, as I said, when we started to find the European Parliament, we were the only group so as you might know unfortunately a group that is far from having the majority in the European Parliament. But we started a campaign, and we started pushing all of the other members and all of the other groups. We tabled quite a few amendments on the issue and what's interesting is like from the very first time we tabled the amendment to the various last time you can really see from from one time to another, how positions evolve and how we're getting more and more members on board as we are going, which is a good news that, you know, this issue got some traction, and I guess the influence and the pressures kind of started working. And the pressure also coming from civil society like Oxford and other organization from people, and that's rather, rather good news. Although, when I do remember at the beginning, I wish, you know, they would all support it from the beginning because we've been losing so much time and Jim has been mentioning it, because you know one of the arguments that has been used is, well, now if we do it, it's going to take a year before some other pharmaceutical companies can really produce and practice some vaccines. Well, first off probably we still needed a year. And second of all, well, it's actually your responsibility then this hasn't been started a year ago when we brought the issue on the table. Now there's a clear position from the European Parliament a year later but better than than than not any position at all. And, and, and the issue is definitely now in the hands of the council that on this issue like on many others has has the habit I would say, not, not to follow and not to respect the position of the European Parliament. So now we're trying to put as much pressure as possible on the European Council and under European Commission for them to follow our position that is crystal clear. And, and that's, you know, there's, there's no need to turn around, I would say we will we exactly know what we want, which is a trip waiver as soon as possible. France and other countries that they've played a weird role because they've been saying one thing publicly, and doing another thing in the negotiation. So that's why we need to keep up the pressure to make sure they do deliver to make sure they follow the vote from the European Parliament, that is the only democratic and the only legitimate setting and framework at the European level to express the view of the European citizens. So that's why we need to keep up the pressure. It's great that you're organizing this seminar we need to keep up the pressure together with the angels to make sure that this is this is translated into into practice, and there's a decision that is taken at the World Trade Organization. And thank you very much, Manon, for that response. And a couple of questions coming in here now from from viewers watching in. And a question from my colleague, Claude Aquain, who has managed a lot of our events on the global health situation over the last couple of months. And she's a question here on the upcoming WHO special session, which is due to discuss the new international treaty on pandemics in November. And what in your view, should these negotiations include and how could more equitable access to medical solutions and vaccines be be factored into that those discussions. Jim, I'll start with you on that on that particular answer. And I wouldn't be fully over, you know, aware of all the minutiae of those kinds of discussions to be perfectly honest. And, but the, what I would say is, you know, if we're talking about future pandemics or we're talking about the current one, and clearly, we need to set a fair rules of the game here. And, and we need to do it now, if it's even if it's for something that we're, you know, that that's coming in the future. And we shouldn't, you know, I mean, it's as I said at the start it's extraordinary how quickly these scientific community were able to produce vaccines. You know, in 1015 20 whatever number of years time if we're faced with something else. We need to make sure that at the start we're not having this debate. You know, vaccines are produced, they're scaled up there, you know, whatever way the burden share of the development is distributed between pharma and between public money or whatever that that some arrangements are made to put in place. But then that there's no doubting that it's a public good, it is scaled up, and it is distributed fairly and globally at that time. And I think that that has to form a foundation for for future thinking on on pandemic approach. Yeah, and Manon just a question here is both this is possibly aimed more at an Irish audience and you might come in but be interested to get your effective on it as well Manon. And it's a question from a journalist with the Sunday Business Post who is watching in Sarah Kaft McGuire, and she says Ireland has has outlined his plans to start vaccinating 12 to 18 girls from September onwards. Should it begin process or should it instead be looking to share its vaccines more widely and globally come to you first man and then Jim interest to get your view on that as well. Well, you see that's exactly the problem that we're having at the moment is vaccinating one over others. And, and the objective is precisely to get out of this question. And I don't want to have to choose between, you know, the Irish teenagers and, and some, I don't know, I do in Congo or in Zimbabwe or in India. And so, so, of course, I mean, if I'm not a scientist, obviously, but if we listen to them they're saying that we probably should be vaccinating us below 18, a lot of EU countries already starting to do it. And this is the case in France, for example. So, we know we might have to go through that phase. But again, we don't have enough, enough vaccines to do it everywhere in the world because then we have our capacities that are limited. So that's why the number one priority should be to increase, increase the capacity. Then in the meantime, I would say that it would be up to scientists to decide whether, whether, you know, we should be vaccinating one over the others. But what I'm afraid of is that in that race that we're having at the moment, it's always the richest countries that win it, but just as it is as simple as that just because they have the money. We've seen it, for example, and it was quite striking for Israel. And the reason why Israel managed to vaccinate almost all of its population in a very short period of time is just because they paid more money. And, and, you know, the only result of that race is that it does increase the profit of farmer companies, but it doesn't save lives. It doesn't take us for good out of this crazy moment and out of this virus. So again, the only solution is to increase the capacity of production. And specifically to you, just on that, I mean, I know it's a specific Irish case, you know, Sarah mentions that, you know, there are plans to go for children and teenagers age 12 to 18. You know, is that the sort of the step we should be taking at this point or should we should we be looking to distribute those vaccines we have. I agree with man on this. We can't. We can't allow this to become some kind of a guilt laden kind of scenario where, you know, I think you are good enough to mention at the start of the star that you you got yours. I've been vaccinated. I'm touched what I'm reason I'm healthy and I'm well, I could survive, you know, without the disease for quite a long time. But it can't be that kind of artificial zero some sort of approach. Really, you know, we just, you know, just remembering that. And it's back to the old mantra about nobody safe until everybody safe and you know that's been trotted out and we have to live that, you know, everybody needs to be safe. The only way for everybody to be safe is for everybody to be vaccinated, and it should be done as as fast as is humanly possible, and the solution is staring us in the face. Just by the way, I mean we we are from Ireland undertook a survey of the Irish public and in March, and 62% want the government to support the ending of monopolies and vaccine production and to, and to support the waiver and the transfer of technology so, that's from people who, you know, were in the queue presumably for the vaccine so you know there's a very strong public support for this it makes it makes sense from a human point of view it's a fair and just thing to do. And it's also a very practical thing to do. Yeah, and I'm Jamal just come to you again with this question is one of my own questions I mean you mentioned in your remarks and you're you know you're very striking and strong about Ireland's record. And, you know, on development on human rights, you know the fact that we do now have a seat at the top table at the UN Security Council and that maybe our voice carries a bit more weight now and you've been quite disappointed with the approach our government has taken to the trips waiver. And can you can you just explained was maybe if there is any hope is there anything that you know Ireland will maybe move on this and can speak to with European colleagues to try and change the European position, or do you think do you think that they will stick with the idea of increasing of increasing production here and exporting. Well, I mean certainly over the last few months there, you know there's there's a very strong support across a lot of opposition for this. And we've heard government voices to who have outlined their own support or at least their sense that this is the right thing to do. You know complex and and you know with, you know, requiring requiring work. So, you know, since that time unfortunately the government's position has seems to have closed and withdrawn of it and and and is very much now aligned as I say there were some senior members in government who who had a more open minded approach to it. So, you know, and what's disappointing from our point of view is that the counter arguments that we're hearing from the pharmaceutical companies, which I could go through them in fact I wrote an article the Irish examiner not that long ago listing every single one of them and explaining why they're why they're spurious, but a lot of those arguments are being used by government sources as well so clearly you know there's something going on and and, you know, I, you know, I, as I say it is quite shocking considering, you know the deserved reputation Ireland has and Ireland has worked hard for that reputation it's been it's been challenging and even in our worst of times here, we were willing to reach out and willing to engage in willing to be part of something that's bigger than ourselves and particularly supporting those who are more vulnerable than we are here so, you know, it's it really speaks in my view to the values of the Irish people and what should be the values of our of our international approach. And so it does need to change and you know we're just hoping that if people can continue to engage with their, their politicians the local politicians and so on and TDS to discuss this and to try and encourage movement, certainly we're last week we launched the Irish people's people's vaccine alliance, and we had a number of international speakers including Mike Ryan who everybody knows, and we had Winnie Pianema who's former colleague of mine from Oxfam but she's the executive director of UN AIDS. We have musta queen to gamma who was the South African permanent mission to the WTO, and a number of others and every everybody on that advocating for this trips waiver. We're part of a global movement so it's not, you know, there's, there's a whole range of Irish medical professionals health professionals here, academics, activists trade unions and NGOs but there are lots of others too. And similarly across the world we have a number of other similar, you know, similar movements so there is a groundswell of support for this. And as I say the public themselves have have told us only only 18% of the public in Ireland are against it. So a very large majority are in favor so we need, we need to, to nudge the politicians to come in line with this and an such a credible and influential voice at a European Union level, if it supports something like this I mean we, we tend to, you know, be in spaces where we, we don't have an axe to grind we don't have an ulterior motive or another agenda. And we're very credible in those spaces and we need Ireland to be to support this and to be credible in that space. So Manon if I just come to you a specific question and apologies if it's too specific for you but there was reports in the Irish media about surplus vaccines in Romania. And that due to vaccine hesitancy, there was so many vaccines being left over in Romania and Ireland was purchasing an extra one million doses from Romania, a fellow European colleague. Do you have concerns about countries in Europe selling vaccines to each other like that when there's such a global demand and global need and is it is it is it morally acceptable that countries in Europe are selling surplus vaccines to each other, should they not be going into the covax costs and spread more widely. Yes, it's precisely the problem of making the vaccine, like, just, just like treating it like any commodity. A vaccine is not a phone. It's not something that you sell to each other that you can make profit on that you can have a patent on it. This is very much different. And if, if the vaccine is a very, you know, very disputed item, and it's only ruled by the market. Well then those things happens, the price increase, and then, and then states might try to steal each other or to bury each other. And then you just, you know, if, if you don't regulate it, then just the market regulates it and we know what the rules of the market are. It's just like, if it's rare, if it's hard to access, well, the price increases and then you have all of those practices that you've been describing so it's it's a clear area of concern. And that's why I think we should not be treating a vaccine like any other community. It's certainly not a nice one or anything else, because the big difference obviously is that it's the only way out of the crisis that we know, and it does stabilize. And on that, Jim, or would you echo what Bobo managed to say? I would and I look at, you know, there's a real worry and it's not just unique to Romania and Ireland. We've seen it elsewhere, where surplus vaccination capacity and availability has been used as a kind of a political lever. I think, I think Israel also was, you know, was sharing surplus, surplus vaccines with countries that, you know, and for various kind of political reasons and that's, that's unacceptable. That's, that's a, you know, it's exactly against everything that the medical profession and those who developed these would, you know, would believe in. And so it can't be, it has to be based on a people's good. I mean, I'm not wouldn't be criticizing Ireland and lots of ways because I mean they're they saw an opportunity but but that said I mean there's, you know, we have to, we have to ensure that this is I mean, if we commoditize all of our health care, then, you know, where we left, where we left a society where we all left as individuals, when we're not so healthy or where when we're struggling and whether that applies across the world, you know, so. And it is, you know, we can't, we can't allow those kind of things to to persist. I'm just turning to you again. And just on specifically on France. I think I think we all were seeing the reports in the media of President Macron, making his announcements around mandatory vaccines for for certain frontline workers and there was a spike in people in people in the vaccine. I know it's off topic slightly but just just giving giving your own backgrounds of French MEP just be interested to get your perspective on that is that something you think is necessary, and or what your own thoughts. I think it's, it's always the same problem with my concerns. I mean, I was about to say since the beginning of the pandemic but it's actually more generally with with the way is is is just doing his policies in France is that the only tool that it has is just like binding is like coercition is like forcing people. And I think it would be much more efficient to actually ensure that every single person in every single rule or are in the in the poorest areas everywhere that every single person has been offered a vaccine because I don't know how it works at the moment in Ireland, but in France to get vaccinated, you have to register yourself online. You have to find to manage to find a timing is suitable timing, etc. But I think we should turn it around and we should actually proactively go to people and offer them a vaccine. And by strategy, while we're going to be on holidays with next couple of weeks. Well, just go to the beach, go to the beach have some sort of vaccine caravans and go proactively to people, rather than forcing them. I think that logic is not a good logic because it would further divide our society in a time where probably you know our society has never been so divided and in particular in France and I think this, this logic of, you know, always forcing always reducing because, you know, if you're not vaccinated, you won't be able to access to go to a bar, a restaurant to go to the cinema. I mean one could start thinking about it. But certainly not in two weeks, by the way, because in two weeks, even if you want to get vaccinated now, you won't have your two injections in the next two weeks. And even so, I think this is not the right way to approach it. And this is not the right way to convince those who have doubts, they would just fill their forest but clearly you won't have, you know, their doubts go away this way. Thank you very much for that response, man. I just just wanted to put that query to you given when we have you on and I suppose we'll finish up with this last question just to each speaker, and you've both touched on sort of, you know, the vaccine rates and the commodification, etc. Jim, start with you, sort of, you know, what lessons has COVID-19 taught us? It's a big question to finish, but if you can try and be as concise as possible. What lessons has COVID-19 taught us about a general approach to healthcare? I know in Ireland it's quite specific, but just more broadly in how maybe we've taken things for granted and what changes do you think can be made sort of in the short term. I think Clota mentioned the WHO convention, maybe that might have a bit of progress there. What lessons do you think COVID has taught us about our approach to healthcare and our taking advantage of it? Well, I suppose let's start with the positive. And it shows that we can mobilize and we can mobilize very quickly, and we can mobilize as a world in lots of ways, you know, I know there in lots of ways we're not but in lots of ways we are. And we can focus on one big issue that affects us all to a level, to a level, let's say. And what it has also shown us is that it is exacerbated existing health inequalities that exist even in countries in a country like Ireland where you have a two-tier system or across the world where you have very weak health systems in many countries. And I suppose, I suppose, ensure that we don't take our health systems for granted, that we know when we're seeing it in Ireland, there's promises of much deeper investment in healthcare. And that's required in every country in the world, public accessible healthcare. And I think that, you know, if anything good comes out of this, it will be that I think we all appreciate that much more and in a much deeper way than we ever did. Hopefully we learn the lessons about ongoing investment irrespective of, you know, whatever political system may be in place at the time. Our global health systems, our national health systems require ongoing investment and commitment. They need to be valued by all of us and appreciated by all of us. And we need to make sure that, you know, that that investment is ongoing is deep and is a huge part of our overall kind of economic structure. And then finally, I suppose, just to identify, you know, where this has gone horribly wrong and what can we learn from it? I mean, this gross inequality that we're now seeing is a horrible manifestation of a world that's unequal. I also saw during the pandemic, you know, sky-high rates of violence against women, gender-based violence, you know, something is wrong in society that we need to look at. And we've seen many other ways where, you know, people who are caregivers have been, you know, their own workload has dramatically increased over this past period. We don't, we don't appreciate that work sufficiently in our society. We need to change that. And then we need to remember that, you know, that the people that we rely on for our day-to-day existence are often people that are on the lower end of the economic scale. And that needs to be appreciated and valued in a different way to the way it is today. Thank you very much, Jim. A big question and a lot of, a lot of thought in the response there. Manon, I can come to you again. I know I don't need to talk about the pandemic like it's over, because, you know, as we've just discussed, it's very much not over. But what has the pandemic exposed about our way of life? And from a European perspective, from a European Parliament perspective, how do you see Europe taking on the issue of public health in the future? I'm going to finish on that one. Thanks very much, Manon. Well, thanks very much. I agree very much with Jim that, you know, the reason why this issue of vaccines is so important is just, it's because it's not only the issue of COVID for now. It's a breach that we want to have in ensuring that we don't treat health as any other community that we are not, you know, we are not making it just as, yeah, like anything else. And that we ensure that we put in place sufficient protection, sorry, to guarantee that the vaccine today, but the next generation of vaccines on anything else, the treatment on HIV and anything else actually is, you know, are becoming public goods, are protected by the state, are protected from a big pharma monopoly that actually at the moment, you know, are the ones that have millions of lives of people into their hands. So that should be a big lesson to learn from this crisis that I do hope that all of the work that we're all doing together to protect the health from the market will be fruitful and will hopefully help in the next couple of years. And I would go further than that. And I would say that there's so many lessons to be taken from this crisis. We've also seen how weak we are when, you know, in the midst of the crisis last year inside the European Union, we were not able to produce face masks. I'm talking here about a piece of paper that we were not able to provide for health workers first and foremost, but also for all of the population. And I don't know how it was in Ireland, but in France they ended up just lying saying, well, it was not necessary. It was not necessary just because they don't have the capacity to produce enough of them. Because we've been selling over our industries, and we've been killing our industries over globalization. And the result is that we were depending on China to produce those face masks. You know, drawing some lesson learned from the crisis, I do hope that it will make us more resilient, question our way of production as well, to ensure we have the capacities to be resilient in front of this kind of crisis. And we don't repeat the same mistakes in the near future. Mistakes on, you know, sorry for the bad light. Mistakes on the production of vaccines, but also mistakes on ensuring we have everything we need to protect our people, starting from face masks up to the vaccines or anything else we might be needed. Brilliant. Manon, thank you very much for that impassioned response to the end. It's really, really heartening to know that you're in the European Parliament and you're advocating for such an approach to public health. We'll finish there. Really, really appreciate your time, both of you this evening, this afternoon, Jim and Manon. I will just say to the rest of the attendees watching in, we do have another YPN session next Thursday. Next Thursday we have Marie Black, who's the Scottish National Party MP. She became an MP at the age of 20 in 2015, and she'll be joining us next week to talk about Scotland's future post-Brexit. But yeah, we'll leave it there. And thank you very much again, Manon and Jim for your time. And there's loads more to discuss on this issue, and I'm sure we're going to be covering it in more detail at the Institute.