The World Health Organisation's head honcho probably wanted to "we've got this" but couldn't quite bring himself to when he spoke late last week.
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It was a bit of a "pat, pat, kick" speech from Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and really, who can blame him?
"There has been a recurring pattern of money being thrown at outbreaks when they're already in full flow but then funds no longer being available to prevent the next outbreak. Reviews and reports are only as good as the recommendations that are implemented. COVID-19 has shown that collectively, the world was woefully under prepared," he said.
Developing "muscle memory', as Thailand did from previous outbreaks, the good doc said, is key to pandemic response.
"From endless warnings about the world being under-prepared, all countries need to dig in together and invest to ensure a pandemic of this magnitude and severity never happens again."
From 11.59pm Monday the shackles will loosen in most of New Zealand, having gone 102 days without a case of COVID-19. Auckland, the heart of a fresh outbreak last month, will follow soon, most probably early next month.
It's nowhere near as hunky dory elsewhere though as outbreaks continue to crop up.
Russia reported 6148 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the second straight day when the daily number of cases exceeded 6000; France set a new daily infections record with its reported 13,498 cases over the previous 24 hours; Brazil recorded 33,057 additional confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, and 739 deaths from the disease while new lockdowns were enforced in Spain's capital Madrid and Israel entered a second nationwide lockdown at the onset of the Jewish high-holiday season.
All of that makes our 11 new cases in Victoria and four in NSW in the past 24 hours seem like a win for modern man. Good job.
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