Thank you very much.
Welcome, Dr. Halperin. It's so nice to have you here at our committee. I'm coming to you from Truro, the unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq. As a proud Nova Scotian, I'm really happy to have you here in your capacity as the director of the Canadian Center for Vaccinology. Of course, the agricultural campus of Dalhousie is in Truro.
As you know, global partners have come together to learn about COVID-19 and do research about the factors of transmissibility, for instance, and new variants of concern and the lasting effects. Could you tell us, please, about that collaboration and why it's so important to have a global response to infectious diseases such as COVID-19?