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Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security Joins the COVID-19 Commission Planning Group

Center News

Published

April 13, 2021 – Experts from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health are working with the new COVID Commission Planning Group led by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs.

Announced today, the COVID Commission Planning Group is preparing the way for a National COVID Commission that will investigate the COVID-19 pandemic and lay the groundwork for a more resilient future. The future COVID Commission may be privately organized or convened by the White House or Congress.

The research team at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security team is led by Amesh AdaljaAnita CiceroGigi GronvallTara Kirk Sell, Jennifer Nuzzo, Caitlin Rivers,  Eric Toner, and Crystal Watson. Yvonne Commodore-MensahLisa Cooper, and Joshua Sharfstein, at Johns Hopkins University, are also working with the Center and the COVID Commission Planning Group. 

The Planning Group is organized around planning 9 task forces, laying the foundation for a future commission to investigate:

  • Origins and prevention
  • Assessment of the danger
  • National readiness and the initial response
  • Communities at risk
  • State and local readiness, containment, and mitigation
  • Caring for the sick
  • Diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines
  • Telling the stories of COVID victims and their families
  • Solving data issues

Sponsors of the COVID Commission Planning Group include Schmidt Futures, the Skoll FoundationThe Rockefeller Foundation, and Stand Together. The Planning Group is directed by Philip Zelikow, who was executive director of the 9/11 Commission and the earlier, privately organized, Carter-Ford Commission on Federal Election Reform.

Read the full press release from the Miller Center.