Stephanie, thank you very much for the question.
I just want to set the stage that while this COVID pandemic has really opened up the wounds, or the scabs, shall we say, within our system, we need to go to 40,000 feet and start with the question: Who are we talking about?
If you look around you, I know there's no one sitting with you, but if there were, one out of the three of you will have dementia by the time you're 80 years of age. If you think it's not going to be you, you're in massive denial because it can be anyone. We all know people who have it.
Secondly, we're all getting older. Ageism is very insidious and we are all subject to it, 100% of us. Therefore, we're not talking about someone outside, someone who's from somewhere else, about a virus. It is part of our society.
COVID-19 has just unmasked some of those symptoms that have always been there. Beyond the physical impact of the virus, there has been a substantial increase in non-COVID related issues as well, such as social isolation and the mental and physical disability mortality and morbidity associated with it. There's a lot of work that needs to be done once the pandemic starts to settle, but we really need to look at how we can make our system such that we don't ever have to subject our parents, our grandparents or ourselves in a few years to going through this again. We must do something about this now.