Anthony Stephen Fauci is an American physician-scientist and immunologist who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022, and the chief medical advisor to the president from 2021 to 2022. Fauci was one of the world's most frequently cited scientists across all scientific journals from 1983 to 2002. In 2008, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, for his work on the AIDS relief program PEPFAR.
The Oxford Vaccine Group (OVG) is a vaccine research group within the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1994 by Professor E. Richard Moxon, was initially based at the John Radcliffe Hospital, and moved in 2003 to its current location in the Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine (CCVTM) at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, England. The group, led by Professor Andrew Pollard since 2001, comprises around 75 members across a number of disciplines, including consultants in paediatrics and vaccinology, clinical research fellows, research nurses, statisticians, post-doctoral laboratory scientists, research assistants and DPhil students.
Sir Jeremy James Farrar is a British medical researcher who has served as Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization since 2023. He was previously the director of The Wellcome Trust from 2013 to 2023 and a professor of tropical medicine at the University of Oxford.
Luciana Borio is a Brazilian-American infectious disease physician and public health administrator. She is a vice president at In-Q-Tel. She previously served as director for Medical and Biodefense Preparedness at the National Security Council, acting chief scientist of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), assistant commissioner for counterterrorism policy of the FDA, and director of FDA's Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threats. She is known for her work advancing clinical trials, the development of medical countermeasures for health emergencies, and the public health responses to Ebola and Zika outbreaks.
Sir Paul Anthony Cosford was a British emeritus medical director at Public Health England (PHE), the UK's public health agency, later replaced by the UK Health Security Agency. He had executive roles from 2010 at PHE's predecessor, the Health Protection Agency. From April 2013 to 2019 he was PHE's Medical Director and Director for Health Protection, making him responsible for advising on services to prevent and control infectious diseases and for preparations and responses to public health emergencies. He led the MMR vaccine catch-up campaign in response to the resurgence of measles following the MMR Scare, and contributed to the response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the Grenfell disaster in 2017, and the 2018 Novichok poisonings in Salisbury and Amesbury. Over the course of his career in public health he led programmes to reduce hospital-acquired infections and tuberculosis, and oversaw ways of dealing with health inequalities, tobacco, obesity, and responses to pandemic flu.
Patrick John Thompson Vallance, Baron Vallance of Balham, is a British physician, scientist, Life Peer, and clinical pharmacologist who serves as Minister of State for Science in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology since July 2024. He previously served as HM Government chief scientific adviser from 2018 to 2023.
Dame Jennifer Margaret Harries is a British public health physician who has been the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and head of NHS Test and Trace since May 2021. She was previously a regional director at Public Health England, and then Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England from June 2019 until her UKHSA appointment in 2021.
Devi Lalita Sridhar FRSE is an American public health researcher, who is both professor and chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Her research considers the effectiveness of public health interventions and how to improve developmental assistance for health. Sridhar directs the University of Edinburgh's Global Health Governance Programme which she established in 2014.
Neil Morris Ferguson is a British epidemiologist and professor of mathematical biology, who specialises in the patterns of spread of infectious disease in humans and animals. He is the director of the Jameel Institute, and of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, and head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Vice-Dean for Academic Development in the Faculty of Medicine, all at Imperial College London.
Azra Catherine Hilary Ghani is a British epidemiologist who is a professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London. Her research considers the mathematical modelling of infectious diseases, including malaria, bovine spongiform encephalopathy and coronavirus. She has worked with the World Health Organization on their technical strategy for malaria. She is associate director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis.
Maria DeJoseph Van Kerkhove is an American infectious disease epidemiologist. With a background in high-threat pathogens, Van Kerkhove specializes in emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and is based in the Health Emergencies Program at the World Health Organization (WHO). She is the technical lead of COVID-19 response and the head of emerging diseases and zoonosis unit at WHO.
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) is a British Government body that advises central government in emergencies. It is usually chaired by the United Kingdom's Chief Scientific Adviser. Specialists from academia and industry, along with experts from within government, make up the participation, which will vary depending on the emergency. SAGE gained public prominence for its role in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
Sir Jonathan Stafford Nguyen Van-Tam is a British physician specialising in influenza, including its epidemiology, transmission, vaccinology, antiviral drugs and pandemic preparedness.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the UK Government introduced various public health and economic measures to mitigate its impact. Devolution meant that the four nations' administrative responses to the pandemic differed; the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive produced different policies to those that apply in England. Numerous laws were enacted or introduced throughout the crisis.
Colleen S. Kraft is an infectious disease physician, associate professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and the director of the Clinical Virology Research Laboratory at Emory University School of Medicine. In 2014, she led Emory University Hospital's effort to treat and care for Ebola virus disease patients and is currently working to address the COVID-19 pandemic in Georgia. She currently serves on Georgia's COVID-19 task force.
The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom from January 2020 to June 2020.
The Jenner Institute is a research institute on the Old Road Campus in Headington, east Oxford, England. It was formed in November 2005 through a partnership between the University of Oxford and the UK Institute for Animal Health. It is associated with the Nuffield Department of Medicine, in the Medical Sciences Division of Oxford University. The institute receives charitable support from the Jenner Vaccine Foundation.
Sir William John Edmunds is a British epidemiologist, and a professor in the Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
Sir Peter William Horby is a British physician, epidemiologist, Moh Family Foundation Professor of Emerging Infections and Global Health, and Director of the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford. He is the founder, and former director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Hanoi, Vietnam which was founded in 2006. In 2014, Horby established the Epidemic Research Group Oxford (ERGO). ERGO incorporates a number of international projects such as the European Commission funded PREPARE, the African coaLition for Epidemic Research, Response and Training (ALERRT), and the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC). Since 2016, Horby has been chair and executive director of ISARIC.
The Great Barrington Declaration is an open letter published in October 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. It claimed harmful COVID-19 lockdowns could be avoided via the fringe notion of "focused protection", by which those most at risk of dying from an infection could purportedly be kept safe while society otherwise took no steps to prevent infection. The envisaged result was herd immunity within three months, as SARS-CoV-2 swept through the population.
