Журнал. World association for medical law. The COVID-19 pandemic. Volume 39 2

90 Medicine and Law Istanbul, there remains next year’s June issue of the Journal in which they will be published. This created a void for the June issue of the Journal. To ensure sufficient material was made available, all Governors, on the Board of Governor’s (BoG) of the WAML, were asked to contribute an analysis of the Pandemic within their jurisdiction. They were given a very limited timeframe and advised that each paper would still be critically refereed and had to satisfy academic standard to be included within the Journal. Each Governor was asked to summarise the local experience of COVID-19 with the aim of publishing these as a mid 2020 time capsule to reflect the Pandemic as of May 2020. At the time of preparing this Editorial, there was sufficient acceptance of invitations to allow a modicum of confidence that the Journal would have ample material to reflect the wide local experiences for this collective overview. It is accepted that this will be far from an absolute and complete picture but it holds the potential to: offer food for thought; demonstrate how different countries have adopted alternative strategies and generate sufficient material to serve as a resource that others may employ when faced with future Pandemics. Manipulating the future is predicated by learning from the past; history should provide the foundation for better planning and, with improved planning, should achieve enhanced outcome. Any paper that was rejected by a referee was returned to the relevant Governor to allow revision to ensure that standards were maintained. Status, within the WAML, was not a ticket to acceptance. If again rejected, by the same referee, the paper was sent to a further referee to guarantee fairness. To ensure that, as editor- in-chief, no favouritism was offered, my own contribution was purposefully sent to the referee who was the first to reject a submission by one of the Governors, thereby guaranteeing that all inclusions were beyond reproach. It follows that if a jurisdiction, of any of the Governors, on the BoG, does not appear within this issue of the Journal, it is because either they did not submit a paper or they failed to pass muster, even after various offers to allow revision to achieve the required standard. This explanation is offered to ensure that no-one can malign the process employed and to confirm that all papers were treated with equal respect and expectation. I would like to thank the many reviewers who gave selflessly their time, often on numerous papers. One such referee, who deserves special recognition, is Andre Pereira, who was pivotal to ensure that papers were assessed in a timely fashion, at times within hours, rather than days. One situation that also demands commentary is the submission from China. Within days of the deadline, for the submission of drafts of jurisdictional commentary, the Chinese representative