Hello Dr. Smith.

Thank you for this contribution.

Perhaps your title is a bit of an overstatement?

Personally, I would not consider this a comprehensive collection of the world’s experts in COVID-19.

Particularly striking is the lack of representation of the community of scientists and physicians from the PRC, who have been at the forefront of understanding and treating this disease.

Just to provide one western example, my colleague Dr. Michael Callahan ( who currently reports directly to the ASPR in US) has supervised treatment of well over 6000 cases of COVID19, was in country in the PRC assisting, was at the forefront of guiding the US management of the Diamond Princess outbreak, and is currently shuttling between particularly troublesome outbreaks in USA and Washington DC where he is actively involved in advising and guiding policy. I do not see any representation in this group which comes close to the active role and experience which Dr. Callahan is bringing to the clinical and functional management and decision making involved in this pandemic.

There are many voices, many individuals with deep expertise, and many ideas guiding the current response.

Perhaps a bit of humility in the face of our profound ignorance about this disease will go a long way to helping enable the emergence of more effective responses? What we confront is a new virus, closely related to SARS, and COVID19 is a new disease with its own nuances and a very complex pathophysiologic cascade that we are just beginning to understand. We now have a bit over three months of practical experience in managing this pathogen and the associated outbreak. And we are out of time, the wolf is no longer at the door but rather is in the house.

In my personal opinion, more effective response management should begin with acknowledging our ignorance, proceeding as efficiently as possible to evaluate the many innovative response options which are emerging worldwide (and often from the PRC scientific and medical community), and opening ourselves to what are essentially crowdsourced solutions. There are many seasoned outbreak veterans who are quietly working on pragmatic solutions. There are others who are doing a lot of talking and in some cases grandstanding. Perhaps a bit less talking by self styled experts, more listening to those on the front lines, and a bit more doing by actively working on solutions would be in order. We have so little time. Lets just get to work. Like many of us have been quietly doing since early January 2020.

Thank you for considering my comments.