10 years of ARA in 10 stories

"Yes, I am excited to appear in the newspaper. My mother has kept them and sometimes she shows them to me", explains Graciela Noguera. "And yes, sometimes I read newspapers", she adds, although she admits that normally she gathers information through her mobile and the messages she exchanges with friends. And she spends more time on TikTok, the most popular social network among teenagers, than leafing through printed paper. 

Graciela still has the same curious eyes that captivated the camera ten years ago and now they light up when she talks about her cat, Sinca, how good she is at taekwondo or TikTok choreography. She is studying fifth grade and what she likes the most is Arts & Crafts and the break. She doesn’t know yet what she would like to be when she grows up. She is in two minds about being either "a dog police" [canine unit of the Catalan police] or a beautician. "To create nails like Rosalía's", she points out. The daughter of a Catalan father and a Guinean mother, Graciela was born on January 1, 2010 at seven minutes past midnight in a long, twelve-hour delivery at the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu (Barcelona). Her mother, Lucrecia Akeng, had lost another daughter in Equatorial Guinea less than a year earlier to malaria. The girl, who was also called Graciela, was only five years old. For her mother, this was the way to give continuity to the life of her dead daughter. "If I had changed the name it would be as if I had completely forgotten her; I did it so that she will always be present", she says. In Guinea another son of hers died, at the age of 8, in an accident on the river. "You can’t forget the death of a child until you die. You assimilate it but it is impossible to forget", Lucrecia says.

Graciela is at that age when she already wants to do things that grown-ups do. She does not want her mother to pick her up at school and prefers to come back home alone with her friends. "And what games do you play?" Wrong question. "We don't play anymore, we don't like to play, we're grown-ups. We just talk. About our things, about TikTok...", she answers, surprised by the question. Her mother explains that she is a responsible girl. "Too much", she points out. "When I was working she used to heat her food on her own and now she wants to cook herself! She behaves as if she were older". Graciela has not yet visited Equatorial Guinea, but she understands and speaks a little of the language of her mother and grandparents, Fang, one of the indigenous languages of this country. "She speaks her father's language, which is Catalan, but also mine, because I want her to know her roots", Lucrecia explains. She would like her to also speak French, another of the official languages of Guinea, and she dreams of making her youth dream come true, being a flight-attendant, but Graciela is not very interested in it. "So now I would like her to be a journalist", Lucrecia says. Graciela also knows that before her there was another Graciela. Her mother has shown her photographs and told her about her sister. "And sometimes on New Year's Eve I cook like I did in Africa and we feed the dead, and she brings out her photo and a cup for her sister, and for her birthday she leaves her a piece of cake", Lucrecia explains.

Asking a ten-year-old girl about the future is an exercise in science fiction. Being twenty years old is still a long way off. "Perhaps I will live alone or with many animals or I will be working or studying or perhaps you will find me with my friends". Who knows, she still has her life ahead of her.

All — No, it was impossible to imagine!

Carme Forcadell — You cannot imagine that you will be in prison, and even less when you know that you have not committed any crime. Impossible. At that time, in 2012, I did not imagine taking a leap into politics either, I had no interest in taking part, on the contrary, I was beginning to preside over the ANC and I was thinking of ending the mandate.

CF — The way of doing activism has changed. Activism will never change because people want to participate in order to improve the world, and while there is injustice, there will be activism, but the pandemic has changed the way of doing activism: now you cannot organize events with so many people. When we met in 2012, social media hadn't evolved that much. Now, on the other hand, a lot of activism is done through networks.

LA — In our case, the way in which animal rights and the environment are viewed has changed in the last ten years, and particularly with the pandemic, which has a very clear origin in the consumption of animals and the destruction of biodiversity. The animal liberation movement is more right than ever but we are at the worst moment in our history - animals have never been so mistreated. It had never happened like this. But one good thing that has happened is that the animal and environmental agendas are coming together - and I think that very soon we will have a unified movement.

CF and AC — Of course!

CF — I have suffered sexism as president of the Parlament. I have suffered it and everyone has seen it, because it happened in a plenary session. Now, imagine being in private meetings. Therefore, if I, as president of the Parlament, have been subjected to sexist situations, it pains me to think of what the thousands of women who have a normal job must go through - they have to fight against these situations on an everyday basis. Obviously politics is a macho world, but we live in a macho society. Any woman must face this situation at some point or another.

AC — I would not only speak of a masculinized or macho politics, we have all received insults and other -more serious- messages. But it is not only that, it is that politics is organized in a macho way: caring is not prioritized. Feminist policies do not only exist in order to denounce sexist aggressions, but also to change priorities and make it easier for women to carry out their life project without giving up motherhood, work, or an autonomous project. Those of us in politics not only have to denounce the attacks we receive, we must, above all, act as spokespersons for the most invisible, because there are people who are much worse off than us.

CF — We have to place not only the person, but the happiness of the person, at the heart of politics; and politicians speak very little of happiness, although it is what we all seek. Surely the happiest moments we all have are with our families. Therefore, the more time we can spend with them, the happier we will be. Let's talk about happiness, let's talk about reconciliation, about how to make more space for family amidst professional life... We have to learn from this pandemic and have a post-pandemic vision.

AC — It is impossible to answer this question after the experience we have had.

CF — I can tell you that I hope to be free and to be able to live with the people I love.

AC — Of course, I hope so too, Carme. And that it is not a matter of ten years.

Ten years ago Ricky Rubio had already won the Euroleague. The Minnesota Timberwolves had selected him in the NBA draft, but he was still playing his second season at Can Barça. "I was just a kid, but I was already thinking about going to the NBA because my project was to spend two years in Barça, as ended up happening. When we won the Euroleague it was even more clear to me that it had to be that way. I remember that time with a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of innocence," says Rubio. Highly talented and imaginative, but less mature than now, the playmaker dreamed of one day making it to the NBA, the best league in the world.

"When I talked to my mother she always told me that we had to help families going through similar situations. When she died, I wanted to pay tribute to the experience she had given me, and I didn't have time to set up a foundation, as we were in the middle of the season, so I joined in the work of other initiatives". After working with different organizations in Minneapolis, Ricky Rubio found the time to start his own foundation. "I feel really fulfilled because I can do projects that really interest me and also help. My foundation is growing and little by little it has more projects and is able to help more people. That is very gratifying because you feel fulfilled. We've been going for almost three years now and it's wonderful. Until it affects you, you are not aware of the magnitude of this disease," he acknowledges. There is no end to the projects. "Every initiative has its magic. There is a research project on liquid biopsy that motivates me a lot because I think it could have helped my mother a lot. We also have the Luca project, which unites two of the branches we have in the foundation: children and cancer. It puts the emphasis on the families, which is a little bit the objective with which the foundation was born. There is another project, the Community Team, which was born in the Raval in Barcelona and which has now grown in other places such as Girona. It tries to use basketball to transmit values," he summarises.

The NBA is a money-making machine, but it also has a dark side that is difficult to digest. A few days ago Ricky Rubio had three different teams in just three days. The Phoenix Suns traded him to the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Oklahoma City Thunder to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

"When you get involved in a project, you give 100%, and when you get traded like that you realize how things work. You are very calm and, suddenly, a thousand things happen. You think: "They could have done it slower, giving you a heads-up. I accept it because it's a business that works very well and is capable of generating many moments of attention. Now that there is no competition, market-related news generates a lot of interest. After so many months of standstill, many teams have wanted to make changes. I think we have never seen so many transfers in such a short time," he confesses. His final destination is the Timberwolves, the team with which he made his NBA debut in 2011. "In the end I'm happy because in Minnesota I felt very loved and that helps a lot. My return to the Wolves is very positive and I think I can bring the experience I have accumulated in other successful franchises, both in the Utah Jazz and the Phoenix Suns. I will be working with Ryan Saunders, a very special coach for me. I met him when he was an assistant coach. His father, Flip Saunders, was the first great coach to back me in the NBA. Within half a year his father and my mother died, and that brought us very close together," he recalls.

Almost a decade ago on that February night, a 14-year-old Marina Comas, nervous and exultant, went on stage at Madrid's Teatro Real to pick up her Goya for best breakthrough actress and between tears said "Good morning, good morning", even though it was past midnight. Ten years later Marina Comas maintains intact the spontaneity and the rural, almost wild, charm that made the Madrid audience fall in love that night but her life has changed radically. She keeps it at home, a country house on the outskirts of Orís, where she has views of the whole Plana de Vic and Lluçanès, and where she lives away from the acting - for the moment - and surrounded by nature and animals. "I don't think it would have surprised the Marina of 10 years ago, the one that won the Goya, to know that I would be living here. I'd always wanted to be a country girl, I've always had a great vocation for nature and I really liked being in the woods, it was almost an obsession", she recalls, and says with a happy tone: "I'm doing what I want, where I want". Although she has not permanently put acting aside, she has not worked in film or television for some time now. She studied the degree she had always wanted - biology - and now she is doing a master's degree in earth ecology and biodiversity. "It's an exciting subject but it's a shame that in Catalonia so little money is spent on these issues", she says, "there are countries that have budgets ten times larger and here the money goes elsewhere instead", she complains.

"I was a very innocent child when I shot Pa negre. I was the typical shy girl, very discreet, who never stood out and with that experience all the shyness went away. By force! I spent a good time being the centre of attention and that in the end helped me to overcome my fear," she recalls. It also helped her to grow up. It was like "accelerated therapy" and a taste of adult life. "I grew up all at once," she notes. And she did it thanks to a film that wasn't exactly for children. "With Francesc we always said: we didn't understand any of that story but we pretended to". And he says that perhaps this is the key to the success of their performances: "The two of us, like the children we played, didn't understand that world of adults or their stories, perhaps that's why the performance was so natural," she suggests. She recalls the shooting and promotion of the film as "a fantastic experience". "I didn't know anything about cinema, I had never made a film before and for me it was an adventure. It was an unknown and fascinating world, almost unreal, and I had the privilege of seeing it from the inside and I loved it," he explains. "It blew my mind", she says summing it up. It is impossible for her to choose a single memory but she does highlight the trip to the United States to promote the film: "That was an incredible dream".

Marina says she is "constantly evolving" and when asked how she sees herself in 10 years time, she rephrases the answer in the form of a wish, confident that this time will allow her to make it happen: "I see myself as a climate change researcher working on international projects. Clear, direct and honest. Three qualities that made her captivate that casting team that in 2010 travelled around the region of Osona looking for children who had the accent of the area and that now help her to make her own decisions and end up, as she says, doing what she wants to do.

His daughter Ona, who was 11 at the time, was partly responsible for the turnaround in Camps' life. It all started one day when the two of them were looking at Facebook and found the photos of two dead children on a Greek beach published by an Italian journalist. The father tried to scroll past them quickly, but his daughter stopped him: she wanted him to explain what was going on. And she asked a tough question: "Why isn't Proactiva going?" "I told her it wasn't that easy, but I realized she was right," Camps recalls. He had 15,000 euros saved in the company and decided to turn it into a corporate social responsibility action.

The next day he met with Gerard Canals, who was then in charge of logistics at Proactiva, and two other workers from the company and asked them for help. "I don't speak English very well and Gerard agreed to go with me". Not even they imagined that two years later they would have converted an old tugboat into an operational rescue ship in the central Mediterranean that would save thousands of lives.

Since Open Arms began its work, the International Organization for Migration reports that 17,000 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean. Many others have disappeared without a trace. The Badalonese NGO knows that they will not be able to help everyone, nor do they intend to, because it is the states that are responsible for sea rescue. In 2016, after the EU signed the agreement with Turkey to return migrants who arrived in Greece, Open Arms moved to the central Mediterranean, on the much longer and more dangerous route between Libya and Italy. At the beginning, Rome accepted the aid, but as Europe was plunged into the economic crisis, immigration became a rhetorical weapon that had a sweet tooth for the most reactionary discourses. The NGOs went from being heroes to bad guys, even accused of colluding with traffickers, and the persecution began. The Spanish PP and PSOE governments also threw a spanner in the works. "We end up devoting as much effort or more to the political battle as to the rescue, because the administrations continually put traps in our way and block us. Sometimes I'm fed up, but we can't stop. We have to reinvent ourselves at every turn".

He maintains that among the Spanish politicians he has met, morals have weighed more heavily than acronyms: "I have been pleasantly surprised by people from the PP who have linked up with us and supported us on a personal level. And conversely, people from the left whom I expected more than I did have disappointed me very much". He said he only felt represented by one head of state, "Pope Francis, who works non-stop for this cause".

The fire at the Moria refugee camp has put the island of Lesbos back on the front page, five years after that photograph of Oscar Camps without the grey hair. Since the EU's agreement with Turkey to contain immigration in 2016, state violence against refugees has become increasingly blatant. Now the Greek coastguards are abandoning the refugees in the Aegean in the middle of the night in lifeboats without engines so that the Turks can send them back to the point of departure.

During some months when the Italian authorities were blocking them, Open Arms went to the port of Motril to help rescue boats leaving Morocco on the Alboran Sea route. Camps argues that as long as a public body such as Salvamento Maritimo is taking responsibility for the rescues, it makes no sense for Open Arms to work in Spain.

I was on holiday in Menorca and one morning my wife woke me up: "Come down, I don't know what they're saying about Grifols and Wikileaks on TV". The scene that Victor Grífols Sr., the current president of the company, explains naturally recalls the unexpected fact of being included 10 years ago in the list of strategic assets identified by the US government and filtered by Wikileaks. "We had no idea," he admits, recalling the flood of calls from the media. What interested the Catalan manufacturer in the United States was immunoglobulin, a protein in blood plasma that regenerates the immune system, which at the time was only produced at the Grifols plant in Catalonia and at nine other facilities around the world. "At first we were surprised, but then you stop and think, and what surprised me most was that in the USA, 6,000 km away, they had identified something in a small town called Parets del Vallès, while in Catalonia and Spain they still don't know where we are," says Víctor Grífols Jr.

WikiLeaks made them known to the general public, says Raimon Grífols, co-CEO of the company along with his nephew, but since then they have experienced a decade of effervescence marked by acquisitions. The starting point was the purchase of Talecris in 2011, a North American company as big as Grifols itself, dedicated to the plasma sector. This was followed by the purchase of Novartis's transfusion unit in 2014 and of Hologic two years later, in order to grow in the diagnostics sector. More recently, they have added new products to the hospital pharmacy business with Kiro and MedKeeper.

Accustomed to working outside the media limelight - which has not prevented the business from operating " just as well or better ", according to Víctor Grífols Deu - they have regained their prominence with the pandemic. Today, immunoglobulin "has become fashionable", says the co-CEO. His father finishes his sentence: "It's a word that appears more in the press, in discussions, and people are beginning to realise that plasma exists and is useful for something".

"Europe is plasma-deficient; 40% of what it needs is imported. The President utters the phrase in the tone of someone who has felt ignored many times: "I have been telling governments this for 40 years, and my father before me, poor man! Plasma - the proteins it contains - is the raw material for manufacturing the company's medicines, which are aimed at treating immune deficiencies or rare and chronic diseases that often have no therapeutic alternative. Unlike in the USA - Grifols has 70% of its business there - there are very few countries in Europe that allow donation centres where the donor is given a financial incentive. "When Spain entered the common market, I don't know who came up with the idea of closing them down," continued Grífols Sr., referring to the twelve donation points they had, including the Hemobank, Grifols's blood and plasma bank and the world's first plasmapheresis centre, which operated from 1945 until the mid-1980s.

Although the President is not entirely sure, Víctor Grífols Deu sees the pandemic as an opportunity for change. " Covid has caused many bad things but also a good one in the plasma industry: it has raised people's awareness of where it comes from and all there is behind it". The youngest director in the saga acknowledges that they are taking advantage of the situation to "put pressure" on Brussels as a sector to change the EU regulatory framework. "At least warn them, they won't be able to say we didn't warn them," Grífols Sr. concludes.

Plasma collection has fallen drastically due to the impact of the restrictions due to covid, and this could affect next year's supply. "In 2021 it will be very hard, there may be countries, patients, who have no product," warns Grífols junior. "What will happen in five months if they lack product in the United States? What will the Americans say? American plasma for American people. And who will be left without it? The countries that don't wake up", says the President, who immediately adds that Germany does not fall into the group of those who have fallen asleep because it already has private plasma donation centres in operation. The Catalan company pays compensation of around 30 dollars per donation in the United States and the donors are largely students, military personnel or people who are simply looking for extra income. Last year, Grifols obtained 13.5 million litres of plasma. To give you an idea, around 1,200 donations are needed for the treatment of a single hemophilic patient for an entire year.

The problem in Europe, insists Grifols Sr., is that there is a "European double standard" of claiming that altruistic donation is enough while, in parallel, plasma is imported from elsewhere. "The financial incentive helps and no harm is done, there is no ethical problem, the plasma is just as good and just as safe," intervenes Grífols Deu. "If today we are already paying for the donation of sperm or eggs, why are some alright and others not?", adds Raimon Grifols.

"We have made a textbook generational handover". It is with this conviction that Victor Grífols Sr. explains the decision the company announced in 2016 to make him president of the board of directors in 2017 ("a decorative position", he says), leaving his brother Raimon and his son Victor as co-directors. According to the patriarch, this succession has a second part: "In five or ten years Raimon will be able to become president of the board and Victor will be the only managing director".

"The reality is that he has the faculties, but there comes a time when you reach a certain age and new ideas arrive, new ways of doing things," explains Raimon Grífols, "and well, travel," his older brother cuts him off. "It's not that I can't travel, but hey, I've been travelling all my life like a mill. From 1983 to 1989 I went 30 times to China, and at that time you didn't fly over Russia, you had to go through Alaska or I don't know where; I was never at home," he remembers. Now the most I travel is to Menorca," he says. "They do it well, they know the business and they have the same criteria that my father had and that I have had", he adds about a handover that has affected the vast majority of the company's management. "And if they ever ask me anything and I disagree with both of them I say, 'It's up to you'", adds the President, bringing to light a thorny issue that is very common in companies. Is there a struggle of egos or discrepancies? Both co-CEOs deny this. "We are lucky that we are family and we don't have to compete with each other," explains Raimon Grífols, "I have known him since he was born, since he was like that [he places the palm of his hand a foot above the ground]".

His nephew takes the floor: "Generationally we are quite close and philosophically we don't disagree, which is where the important clashes occur". They cite, as an example, the decision to face this crisis without any redundancy programme in a company that employs more than 24,000 workers, 3,546 of them in Catalonia.

"If you come in ten years' time, what will really have been transformational will have been China: it will have an effect even greater than Talecris had". It is Victor Grífols Sr. who dares to make the prophecy. "In the United States we have the technology and the sales people, who know more than we do; here, the way of doing things and the engineering," he explains. But the growth of the market is in China, you can't imagine the potential that this has, it's a beast".

The executive who will go down in history as the man responsible for the leap of a small Catalan company to the condition of global giant does not hide his satisfaction with the formula with which they managed to enter the Asian giant. "The exchange of shares was a masterstroke: we have 26% of the Chinese company and they have 42% of our North American diagnostic company; that's why we know that they will take the diagnosis there and they will be our consumers: it is in their interest, it is a masterstroke", he says.

As he explains, today in China only eight million litres of plasma are collected each year, less than the 13 million which Grifols alone collects. "And China needs four times more plasma than the United States, imagine what that is like". As he explains, his competitors sell products, but they are not as well positioned. "And it will cost them a lot to get in.

Grifols' president ends with an announcement: "Write this down: whoever comes from ARA newspaper in ten years' time, should ask us about China".

Aitor looks at the pages of the newspaper from nine years ago where his photo shared the spotlight with Jordi, Andrea and Manel. They were the four Catalan students with the best marks in the 2011 university entrance exams. "It's been a long time since I've seen them. I've changed a bit but I recognise myself.

It's been a long while but at the same time I'm very aware of it. It was a moment in my life that marked me". The announcement of the exam results caught him in Pamplona, where he was preparing to participate in the International Biology Olympics in Taiwan.

And he regrets that some media would like to dig into irrelevant information such as his love life or political ideas. "I was 17 and had to get around some questions that I thought might have consequences". For all these reasons, he acknowledges that it was "one of the worst days" of his life. "But it is part of my life journey and I have to accept it," he adds. The positive side is that his closest environment was very happy and his parents and especially his grandmother were very proud. For a few days there was always someone telling them that they had seen Aitor on TV or in the newspapers. "My grandmother would bring up the subject in any conversation. For her, who was unable to study, that was a dream". "But my parents agreed with me that the most important thing was for me to be happy with what I could do and these priorities were clear to me", he reasoned.

He is now a third-year junior doctorat the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, where he says he feels "at home". "A place where I feel loved and that I love. It's a big hospital but I like to feel this bond". He acknowledges that the residency is "a very intense part of a doctor's life", with very long working days, as junior doctors work 24-hour shifts to complete a basic salary of between 900 and 1,100 euros, he explains. When we meet, junior doctors are on strike for better working conditions, and he has just returned from one of the demonstrations. He considers the paediatrician to be "a close doctor", with sensitivity to treating the sick child and his family, and admits that they often see "very tough cases". "The first times you see a child die you come home feeling different and with a sense that no one from outside your work environment understands you". Perhaps that's why he considers the hospital a second family. "We give each other a lot of support. I can explain at home what has happened to me but it is not perceived in the same way, there are days when you come back upset and with things inside you have to work on", he acknowledges. It's not unusual to wake up the next day with a picture in your head or a case going around. "A child's pain is different from that of an adult and you also see the suffering of the families, we can't forget that". And keeping it all out is not the solution: "Because at some point it will explode. You can't shield yourself".

The roots the Caliba Ramos have set in Catalunya are recent, but their three children make them almost immovable. The couple arrived in Barcelona from the Philippines in the 1980s and settled in Raval, where there were already many people from that country. A migrant story that repeats itself: when in a new culture, they seek the warmth of their compatriots. This was the neighborhood of Glen and his two little brothers, the streets where they played football and basketball. But the fact that the parents chose a school with few children of Filipino origin opened his mind and his horizon of possibilities, he says, in order to not live secluded in a small copy of Manila: "This happens more in parents’ generations, or in Filipinos who have come as grown ups".

Luckily, he says he only remembers one episode in which he experienced racism heads on. He was a teenager and, while he was waiting with a friend at the doors of the conservatory on Bruc street, a woman made an unpleasant comment that left them confused. However, other than this incident, he has never had a problem with his origin.

At home, Spanish has gained ground over the mother's ilocano, but he maintains both the family language and notions of Tagalog, and can make himself understood when visiting his large family that lives in the archipelago. "Languages are difficult at first but then it's like riding a bicycle", he says. He speaks six.

Music broke into his teenage life almost by chance, thanks to a family friend who had started studying at the conservatory. Without any family tradition, he was immediately bitten by the bug, encouraged by his parents, eager for Glen and his brothers to learn and have the opportunities they had not had, even paying the high cost of travelling 12,000 kilometers away from family.

What began as an extracurricular activity became yet another subject, and he combined music first with highschool, and later with computer engineering classes at the UPC. He finished the intermediate level of piano studies, and was held back by the difficulty of the higher grade. Still, he says it is like a trade for him. He also plays the violin and the organ very well, the latter, an instrument he plays in the Adventist church of which he is a member. "Playing for me is a way to disconnect from the world", he sums up.

One of the things that have changed in this decade is the everyday landscape of the young engineer. Now he lives in Mollet del Vallès, and shares a flat with a friend and his dog. It is a way of sharing expenses but also, he points out, of having company. "I can't imagine lockdown alone". He says that it has been a "long journey" from Raval to the Vallès city. In his old neighbourhood, he emancipated himself from his parents and settled in an old rental apartment, but three years ago the owner asked him to leave, claiming that she needed the house for her own use. At that time his parents had also moved to Premià de Mar, where they do care work for the elderly, and he went with them. The experience was short because from there he moved to Badalona, ??where he already shared a flat with the friend with whom he ended up going to Mollet, halfway between family and work.

Glen Caliba has not only been portrayed by ARA as a reference of what has been called “the social elevator” - the success story of a child from a migrant family. He laughs with satisfaction and pride when he is reminded of the headlines in which his name has appeared and states that the neighborhood children who knew him looked at him as a role model. "It was a responsibility". His role models are his parents, of whom he highlights the "sacrifices" they have made for their children. "They came here without speaking the language, in the market they had to point to the fruit or the meat to make themselves understood", he recalls. "As children these stories made us laugh but in reality they were very brave". Now it is the parents who are proud of their children. "When I appear in the media I never say anything to them, but they always end up knowing it because their friends tell them. Once my father was moved when the man he cares for showed him a newspaper clipping with my photo".

The first question is a must: is that ten-year-old headline obsolete? Clotet doesn't think so. And he argues that the therapeutic AIDS vaccine is being developed "but already physically exists". "And it's working," he says. And he compares it to the coronavirus. "We will also have a vaccine against coronavirus, probably at the end of the year or the beginning of next year, and we will start to see its effectiveness, but it will still be two years of research with a very large population before we know whether it gives efficient protection".

However, he believes that the cure for covid will come sooner than the cure for AIDS. The goal now is to develop a vaccine that will protect "against the current coronavirus and against possible variations that may emerge. He is optimistic that "we are close" to controlling it. "We are looking at the first vaccines, but we will have to see if they are sufficient," as some patients have been re-infected. "We are learning a lot from the coronavirus," acknowledges Clotet, who highlights the large amount of scientific content being generated. "I have never had the sensation of so much science. In addition, "now articles are posted on the web before they are published in the journals and everyone has access to them," he stresses. When asked if he is where he imagined himself to be, he replies emphatically: "I can say that I am very proud to be where we are and I didn't expect us to be so high up (we are the most important group in the state in terms of number of publications and one of the most important in the world), and this is due to the enthusiasm with which the team works".

He is still a "suffering Barça supporter, that hasn't changed". In fact, it has gotten worse with the current situation. "I hope that Barça, which is much more than a club, get out of this sensibly and avoid useless confrontations. And he wishes there to be "a good leader" at the helm who will return Barça to its rightful place, "one of the best clubs in the world".

The same thing that he wants for Barça - "more cohesion and union for the colours" - he wants for Catalonia: "It is incredible that the different parties that defend the right of self-determination are not capable of unifying criteria. I would like for it to be possible to turn the page and for this internal struggle for power and egos to disappear". He considers that this "animosity" between parties would not be understood within any other social sector. "If it were to happen to the doctors in our research they would not understand it, and it turns out that politicians do not set the example of cohesion that they should". But he is optimistic: "The past is useless and I always hope that there will be a present that will surprise us and give us hope for the future".

Jana is stoic in her mother's arms, so she can have her photos taken. Mother and daughter look at each other with complicity. The face masks reveal that Jana has come to the world during covid times.

Laura Guijarro was 15 weeks pregnant when lockdown began, last March. She had not yet had time to explain it to everyone around her. "I have missed sharing this pregnancy and I have the feeling that there are friends who have not seen me pregnant”, she explains. This was Laura's second pregnancy. The first ended abruptly on September 19th, 2018, with four words: "There is no heartbeat”. “Her heart stopped, just like that, at 30 weeks old, for no apparent reason”. Her first daughter was named Gal·la.

Jana’s pregnancy has been spent at home, in her private bubble, since, as a pharmacy technician, she was immediately recommended to stay at home. "They told me that covid does not cause vertical transmission, but, of course, my other daughter already died without knowing why, so I was very afraid", she acknowledges.

Social networks have supplied the need for socializing. On Twitter and Instagram she has connected with other mothers. "We have been able to share this strange time and this fearful pregnancy. Networks make you feel very accompanied". This has also dampened the feeling of postpartum loneliness. "The first few days I cried about everything. During the other postpartum I also cried, but now I said to myself: «Why am I crying if I should be happy that Jana is here?» I couldn't share this with anyone but David". He has lived the lockdown pregnancy "with fear and respect". As he was able to continue working away from home, "he was afraid to bring the covid home". Grandparents and uncles have also not been able to "enjoy 100%" of Jana. "And there are friends who have not seen her yet, and I don't know when they will see her. I understand it but it's sad because you make plans about what you're going to do when she is born and we can't do anything. It makes me angry".

2020 will be remembered as an adverse year, but for Laura and David it will always be the year in which their daughter was born. "It is true that it has been a very bad year, but for me it has also been beautiful. For me 2020 represents life, joy... People are having a hard time and, despite everything, life makes its way. After everything we've been through, Jana has arrived to heal our broken hearts”, she says. They had made plans to have a party when Jana was born, "to celebrate life", but now she will have to wait. "Sometimes I think, 'Does this have to happen to us now?' If she had been born before the pandemic, I could have enjoyed it differently, but there is nothing we can do to change it". She does not say it sadly, but admits that she has Gal·la in mind. "I already knew that I had lost a daughter, but Jana has made what we have missed from Gal·la more tangible for me; now I know even more what her not being here means". Jana will grow up knowing she had a sister. In fact, in the room they would have shared there are sentences that read: "Wherever you are, our love reaches". Laura doesn't think she will have any more children. "I've been very scared. It's very nice, but the nine months until I heard Jana cry were very long".