Dear Colleagues,

It’s been a bit of a crazy week over here, ànd we have two Featured articles (see below), so just a few points here in the intro.

The week started with the news that the PABS negotiations  get (quite ) some ‘extra time’. That the deadline wasn’t met, didn’t come as a major surprise.  In fact, as TWN notes, among others it showed “… the limits of the argument that why WHO should conclude the WHO Pandemic Agreement negotiations and start the ratification process is the urge to show “multilateralism is working, and possibly without the US”.”    Let’s hope the coming months/year do lead to a breakthrough, though, that does go beyond the status quo.

But like Tedros and others, we’re not sure pandemics will patiently wait till then. In a fresh public health emergency  (and IHR ”stress test”, not a pandemic fortunately), the boomers among us were reminded again that a cruise can have its downsides. Even if one’s ship embarks from Ushuaia. Having said that...