'Lessons from the Covid War': The report from the Covid Crisis Group

Danielle Allen is James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics. She is a professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy as well as a seasoned nonprofit leader, democracy advocate, national voice on pandemic response, and distinguished author. She is the founder and president of Partners In Democracy, which sustains progress for democracy by working at the state level. Allen made history in 2020–22 as the first Black woman ever to run for statewide office in Massachusetts. She holds an A.B. in classics from Princeton University, an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in classics from the University of Cambridge, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.

Carter Mecher has held a number of positions in medical preparedness and public health. He was most recently the senior medical advisor for the Office of Public Health in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. From 2005–11, he was director of medical preparedness policy at the White House Homeland Security Council, where he supported the development of federal policies to enhance public health, biodefense, and pandemic preparedness. He was also a principal author of the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan. Mecher received his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois and his medical degree from Chicago Medical School.

Philip Zelikow is the White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the Miller Center, where he has also served as director. He was also the dean of the graduate school at the University of Virginia. His work has focused on critical episodes in American and world history. His federal service during five administrations has included positions in the White House, State Department, and Pentagon. His last full-time government position was as the counselor of the Department of State, a deputy to Secretary Condoleezza Rice. He directed a short-lived federal agency, the 9/11 Commission. He is one of the few individuals ever to serve on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Boards for presidents of both parties, in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He is the chair of the Covid Crisis Group.

Guian McKee is an associate professor in presidential studies at the Miller Center. He received a Ph.D. in American history at the University of California, Berkeley, in May 2002, and is the author of Hospital City, Health Care Nation: Race, Capital, and the Costs of American Health Care (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023) and The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia (University of Chicago Press, 2008). At the Miller Center, McKee works extensively with the Presidential Recordings Program and co-directs the Health Care Policy Project. His research focuses on how federal policy, especially in the executive branch, plays out at the local level in American communities.