MONACO WOMEN FORUM
The International Women For Women Forum took place on Monday, June 22, 2020 through a webinar entitled " Science, health, society: the global and transversal impact of COVID-19 ".
Organized by the International Women for Women Forum, a "women for women" organization conceived in the Principality of Monaco by journalist Cinzia Sgambati-Colman, which promotes conferences and debates on topical issues. It takes place every year in conjunction with the Monte-Carlo Woman of the Year Award, an international award dedicated to women under the High Patronage of HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco and the Honorary Presidency of HSH Princess Charlene of Monaco. It was created to celebrate women around the world who are doing extraordinary things in their daily lives through their professional or personal actions.
The event was carried out with the support of Walgreens Boots Alliance, which has supported the Woman of the Year Award since its first edition in 2012, and actively collaborates in the promotion of the International Women for Women Forum.
Welcome speech at the Forum by HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco.
With the participation of:
- HE Madame Evelyne Genta, Ambassador of Monaco to the United Kingdom and Kazakhstan
- Ornella Barra, Co-Chief Operating Officer, Walgreens Boots Alliance
- Ilaria Capua, Director of the One Health Center of Excellence at the University of Florida
- Moderator Cinzia Sgambati-Colman, journalist and creator Women For Women Forum
The intervention of Professor Ilaria Capua was removed from the video recording of the event after a period of two weeks, in accordance with the agreement.
Ilaria Capua Director of the One Health Center of Excellence at the University of Florida explained.
It's the virus that makes the virus, not the pandemic. If it had been up to it, it would have stayed in the forest, if it had entered a Chinese village 100 years ago it might have infected a few hundred people and then it would have died out. We caused the pandemic because we operate in a system that lacks the flexibility to deal with a health emergency like this.
I think one of the things we should do is revamp the way we move. Before the shutdown, China exported 4 million people. Covid-19 has shown us that epidemics are no longer a problem of people but of systems. Current epidemics are accelerated by our circulation system. If it had happened 100 years ago, there wouldn't even have been a conversation about it. It's a movement disorder. We have to look at it from another point of view. We have - or rather, we had before the lockdown - communities of people who travel by plane all the time. This has an impact on our way of existing and also on the environment, which we have to think about. I wonder about the future, because it is clear that mass transportation significantly contributed to the spread of infection. And it's also a problem in the food chain.
Pandemics are social fixers: they are charged with energy, even positive energy. You have to be able to harvest it, because it is not right that disasters only bring negative energy. The planet is breathing, the air has been purified in many parts of the world, nature is there and it is telling us that we may need to give it some space...
It is impossible today to predict whether there will be a second wave of Covid-19. What we can say is that, according to the studies known to date, the virus has not changed. We must therefore act with caution, knowing that a possible return of the pandemic can be fought with much more appropriate instruments than what happened a few months ago.